


Last Call

by sammyatstanford



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gratuitous Bed Sharing, Minor Character Death, Pre-Series, Underage Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 14:23:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3653655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammyatstanford/pseuds/sammyatstanford
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean watches his father’s body burn on the funeral pyre, stares as though he can see through the brightness to skin melting, bones turning to dust. They stand downwind, the stench of burning flesh washing over and past them. Dean blames the sting in his eyes on the smoke. He is seventeen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Call

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr. Formatted to fit this screen.
> 
> For reasons, Sam and Dean are 3 years and 3 months apart in age in this fic, rather than 4 years and 3 months (so Dean was born in 1980, not 1979).
> 
> Art by the incomparably gifted [hellhoundsprey](http://hellhoundsprey.tumblr.com/).

******

_1997_

******

 

Dean watches his father’s body burn on the funeral pyre, stares as though he can see through the brightness to skin melting, bones turning to dust. They stand downwind, the stench of burning flesh washing over and past them. Dean blames the sting in his eyes on the smoke.

He wraps an arm around Sam, pulls him against his chest. His little brother has a fist pressed to his teeth, muffling the sobs that Dean feels shaking in his shoulders.

They watch the fire until the pyre has been reduced to ash, and then they turn and walk away.

Dean is seventeen.

***

Dad always told Dean, “If anything happens to me, you call Bobby,” but Dean’s pretty sure John hadn’t reckoned on Bobby and Caleb going down with him. A pack of werewolves, a hunt too big and too dangerous for Dean and Sam to participate, so John had called in back-up. Turns out back-up was worth nothing. Dean can’t help but think if he’d just been there, if Dad had just let him tag along, four would have been enough. Four and they would all have walked out alive, or they all would have died together and Dean wouldn’t be here with emptiness gnawing at his insides.

He looks over at Sam, who is sitting rigidly in the passenger seat and staring through the windshield without blinking. If Dean had died, then Sam would be alone. Really alone.

All that’s left is Pastor Jim, so they’ve gassed up the Impala and are heading north, then west, then north again. Dean wants to drive until the rattling in his skull fades away, until the pressure behind his eyes is replaced with the sandpapery pain of too little sleep, until he can outrun the cold feeling in his bones. But he knows Sam can’t take it, so he stops after twelve hours on the road, checks them into a motel with an ID that says he’s 21. He makes Sam slide down in the passenger seat because he doesn’t want to answer any questions.

Dean is still awake at 4 AM when Sam crawls into bed with him and presses a wet cheek to Dean’s shoulder.

“Dean,” Sam whispers into the skin of his neck, “what are we going to do?” He tilts his face up to look at Dean. His cheeks shine in the orange glow of streetlights that leaks through the gap in the curtains.

Dean rubs a thumb through the tear tracks. “I don’t know, Sammy,” he whispers back. “We’ll figure it out.”

Sam nods, presses himself up against Dean’s side and settles. “Don’t ever leave me,” he says into Dean’s chest, and the words feel like a brick on his sternum, weighing heavy and serious.

“I promise,” he murmurs back, and strokes Sam’s hair off his forehead as Sam’s breathing quiets and evens out. The brick sinks down below his ribcage and takes up residence next to his heart.

***

Sam is in the backyard, playing with Pastor Jim’s dog. Dean watches him through the window, his hands frozen midway through the motion of picking up his sandwich to bring it to his mouth. Sam hasn’t smiled in a week, but Dean thinks he can see softness starting to come into his cheeks again as the dog tears off after the tennis ball Sam tosses towards the far corner of the yard and comes bounding back with it clutched in its teeth.

 _Good boy_ , Dean reads on Sam’s lips as he ruffs up the hair on the dog’s head and pries the ball away.

“It could be good for him here.” Pastor Jim’s voice startles him, and Dean drops his half-eaten sandwich on the plate as he turns around. Jim is coming down the stairs into the kitchen. “I mean, if you’ve got somewhere else to go, by all means but…I’ve got the room.”

Dean knows he looks like an idiot, standing there and blinking, but his brain is struggling to process. “Wh—What do you mean?”

Jim comes closer, puts a hand on his shoulder. “I know you don’t want to think about it right now, but at some point you’ll have to decide where you two are going to settle down.”

“Settle down?” Dean echoes, making it a question.

Jim drops his hand, nods at Sam through the window. “Dean, you can’t take care of him by yourself. You’re not even old enough to be his legal guardian. You boys need help. Sam is young, he needs some stability. Can you really give him that on your own? Look Dean, your father…he had his problems, but he was a good man. And if I can honor that by taking the two of you in, then I’m here for you.”

Dean nods faintly and turns back to the window. Jim seems to get the message and moves away. “Just—talk to him about it, okay?” Jim says and walks into the living room.

Dean watches Sam watch the dog. His hands curl into fists at his sides. Sam is his to take care of, his responsibility. Always has been, always will be. He did plenty of taking care all by himself even when Dad was—when Dad wasn’t—since he was old enough to count correct change for burritos at the convenience store. And they have responsibilities. Just because Dad isn’t—they can’t just give up on everything they’ve been working for. They still have to find what killed Mom. There’s still people out there that need them to save their lives, to save their families. And Jim just wants them to walk away? To settle down? Go to school and get 9-to-5s and what?

What will the Winchesters be then?

Sam turns to look at him like he can feel the weight of Dean’s eyes through the glass. For a long moment, their gazes lock. Dean’s fingers reach out to brush against the pane of glass. Sam raises his hand in a return wave, and there’s his smile.

***

It’s not even midnight when Sam crawls into bed with him, like he’s done every night since they got to Pastor Jim’s. He’s coming earlier and earlier, which is good because Dean can’t sleep until Sam is next to him and Dean knows he’s safe. Knows he’s not going to wake up in the morning and find Sam dead and gone. Knows that if something happens to Sam, it’ll have to happen to him, too.

Dean’s on his stomach, face turned toward the window, and Sam presses along his side, skinny arm flung across Dean’s back and skinny leg tangled up in between his. Dean feels breath on his shoulder as Sam says, “How long ‘til we leave?”

Dean shrugs out of Sam’s hold and rolls over on his side, facing his brother. “Jim wants us to stay here for good,” he says. Licks his lips in the answering silence.

“Stay here?” Sam eventually parrots back, his eyes a little wide.

“Yeah,” is all Dean offers in return. If Sam wants to stay, Dean will let him have it. “He said…said he could be your guardian and—”

“ _No!_ ” Sam interrupts, his whisper harsh. “No, y-you’re—you’ve always—d-do you not want me?” he stammers out, his voice growing increasingly timid until it breaks on the last word.

“God, of course not, Sammy.” He puts his hand over the hinge of Sam’s jaw, tangles his fingers in the softer hair at the back of Sam’s neck. “I told you, I’m always with you, okay? You and me, forever.”

Sam nods a little. “Don’t want someone else,” he whispers. “Just you.” And Dean gets it, he does, because they’ve lost everyone, everything, except for the car and each other. Letting someone else in is just asking for someone else to lose.

“We can still stay here,” Dean offers again. “I won’t leave you.”

Sam inhales a shaky breath, closes his eyes, leans in until they are forehead-to-forehead. “No one else,” he murmurs, and Dean is going cross-eyed trying to look at his little brother’s eyelashes. “Just you.”

[ ](http://hellhoundsprey.tumblr.com/post/105455561504/he-puts-his-hand-over-the-hinge-of-sams-jaw)

***

They leave two days later, a few hours before dusk, so it’s after two in the morning when they hit the capital. Dean knows there’ll be security patrolling the courthouse, maybe even some night employees, so he’s nervous, but he breaks and enters without a hitch, makes sure he puts stamps in all the right places. Maybe something is finally on his side, at least for tonight.

He heaves a deep sigh as he pulls the Impala’s door open and slides in, carefully passing over the paperwork in his hands to Sam. His brother takes the pages delicately, sticks them in the folder he has waiting so they won’t get wrinkled.

In a diner two states over, Sam fills out the forms in his neatest, most careful script (his handwriting already looks cleaner and more adult than Dean’s ever will). They stop at an office supply store and make a few copies, just in case.

And just like that, a twenty-year-old Dean Winchester is Sam’s legal guardian on paper, and seventeen-year-old Dean Winchester realizes that as far as putting their lives back together goes, some forged paperwork was the easy part.

 

******

 

For a while, they just keep moving. It's close enough to summer that there's no point in either of them going to school (not that Dean figures he’ll be going back anyway—can’t exactly register as Sam’s guardian and then be a senior while he’s a freshman). Normally this would be prime time for hunting, but Dean’s not even sure where to start. He feels lost, restless, like the only thing keeping him in his skin is the way Sam seems to need a hand on him pretty much all the time now, pinky finger brushing against the side of his leg where it rests on the bench seat of the Impala, or bony knee pressing into his shins under the table when they stop to eat.

The first night they stop at a motel, Dean gets two beds, the way they used to sleep when Dad was on a hunting trip. But it’s after three in the morning when he wakes to the sound of Sam’s hitched, panicked breathing.

“Sam?” he whispers into the darkness, soft in case it’s just a nightmare. He hears a crinkle of fabric as Sam’s head turns towards him, the harsh breaths easing just slightly. “You okay?” Dean asks, even though he knows it’s a stupid question—neither of them are okay.

Sam doesn’t respond, just shuffles restlessly under the starchy sheet.

“What’s wrong?” Dean asks, a bit more firmly this time.

Sam’s breathing stops completely for a long minute. “If I fall asleep,” he whispers finally, words almost smothered by the rattle of the A/C unit, “when I wake up, you could—what if you’re gone? What if I wake up and you’re gone, just like Dad?”

Dean swallows thickly around the knot that immediately lodges itself in his throat. He closes his eyes for a moment, reliving the feel of his hand closing around the delicate wing of Sam’s shoulder, shaking his little brother awake.

_“Sam. Sam! Wake up!” His voice is rough and too loud and out of his control._

_Sam, sleepy, rolling over, blinking up at him questioningly through a nest of shaggy bedhead._

_He doesn’t even know how to start. “I think—.” His voice choking off. Swallowing, gathering his strength._

_Sam must hear his panic because he sits up now, scratchy motel comforter puddling at his waist. “What is it, Dean?” He sounds small and heavy with sleep._

_Dean’s knees go out and he collapses on the bed next to his brother. “I think something happened to Dad,” he finally manages, but it’s barely more than a whisper._

_He’s never been more grateful that Sam knows him so well, because Sam picks up on his meaning immediately without him having to spell it out. “What? What do you mean? How? I mean—_ what?” _Sam’s eyelids are fluttering like his brain is trying to reset itself. Small fingers worm their way into Dean’s closed fist._

_Dean turns his head and Sam’s eyes follow his to the TV, where the local news shows the story of three hikers found in the woods, apparently mauled by wild animals. The bodies aren’t shown, but there’s a pair of feet sticking out under the tarp at the crime scene. They wear boots that are distinctly Uncle Bobby’s._

_They watch the TV all morning, flipping between every channel showing news they can find. Eventually the cops release names—fakes of course, because none of the three would have been stupid enough to carry real ID on a hunt, not with more than a few warrants out for their arrests all over the country._

_That night, they break into the coroner’s office and take Dad’s body. They want to take all three, but they don’t have the equipment to pull off that big of a job, just the two of them. So they leave ID behind, know that Bobby and Caleb will have wills requiring cremation like any good hunter. But Dad—well there’s some things Winchesters have to do themselves._

Dean opens his eyes, back to the real world, Sam panting and panicked on the other side of the room. He shifts towards the window and lifts the covers. “Come here,” he says, doesn’t let it be a question. Sam heaves a sigh that sounds a lot like gratitude and slips out from under his covers, slides right up into Dean’s space, arms wrapped around and clutching into the fabric of his old, overwashed t-shirt. Sam’s knees bump up against his thigh and his shoulder is warm and damp where Sam’s breath puffs against it as he settles in. Dean wraps an arm around Sam’s back, rests one hand in the curve of his spine, wraps the fingers of the other around Sam’s wrist and rubs gentle little circles. Calming down Sam is something he knows; right now it feels like the only thing he’s sure of.

Sam is warm and soft next to him, and Dean is starting to drift off again when he hears Sam whisper, “Dean?”

“Yeah, Sammy?” he murmurs.

“Just in case…I love you, okay?”

Dean feels a little spark of warmth work its way into the leadenness of his body. It’s not that they don’t love each other, but they don’t really say it much. He cranes his neck to the side, presses his lips against the fluffy hair at the crown of Sam’s head.

“I love you, too,” he breathes, feels through the thin fabric of his shirt how Sam’s cheek presses slightly out, like maybe he’s smiling a little.

***

After five motels of wasted money, Dean stops worrying about an extra bed.

 

******

 

With everything that happened, they missed Sam's turning fourteen, so one night in July, Dean buys him an electric razor and a dozen cupcakes from the grocery store that they eat all in one sitting while they watch all three original  _Star Wars_  movies, and Dean makes fun of '3PO until Sam laughs, really  _laughs_ , bright and dimpled and holding onto his stomach like he’s regretting all of those cupcakes.

It sort of feels like Dean’s birthday, too.

 

******

 

They haven’t stopped moving since they left Pastor Jim’s, no more than a month but usually less in any given town, and the aimless wandering, no destination or hunt or goal at all in mind, is eating into Dean’s bones. They were basically raised like nomads, but Dad taught Dean to shoot when he was nine, brought Dean on his first hunt at twelve. Dean may have always been moving before, but at least he was always moving in a direction,  _to_  a someone or a somewhere that needed the sort of help only Winchesters could provide. He knows it’s bothering Sam, too. The kid’s been so quiet ever since, usually no more than a few words unless he’s in an exceptionally good mood or they’re murmured directly into Dean’s ear as they lay tangled together at night. But Dean still knows, can see it in the shiftless rustle of Sam’s legs over the Impala’s floorboards, the deep circles underneath his eyes, the way any lingering pudginess from his baby fat is melting off his bones because he’s barely eating.

They’re both so lost, and Dean doesn’t even know where to look to start finding them.

 

******

 

Two things happen.

It’s mid-August now, and that means they’re running out of time to find a school to enroll Sam in for the semester. Dean knows they need to, thinks the normalcy of classes and homework and a reason to get up in the morning would be good for Sam, but every time he tries to ask Sam for an opinion, his little brother shrugs a boney shoulder and bites his lip instead of speaking. Dean knows he’s gonna have to push the issue, but since he doesn’t know where to go either, he isn’t making much progress.

And then one day, one of Dad’s spare cell phones rings. It’s another hunter, one whose name Dean doesn’t even recognize, but Juan Rodriguez tells him about some suspicious probably-a-spirit type of activity going on around Madison, Georgia, something Juan can’t get to because he’s in Texas tracking down some sort of snake beast that likes to munch on house pets and the occasional small child.

School's just started back in the south, and Sam’s smart, has always been ahead, and really, it’s as good a place as any. He hangs up the phone and heads back into the motel room, sits down on the bed where Sam is stretched out in his boxers, watching Saturday morning cartoons and ignoring the bagel Dean brought him for breakfast.

“Eat that,” Dean says, and Sam lifts it off his lap automatically with a crinkle of deli paper and takes a bite. “Finish it, and then get packed up. I got us something.”

The paper crinkles in Sam’s grip. “Something what?” he asks, not looking at Dean, eyes steadfast on the TV screen.

“A hunt. In Georgia. I figured we could get you enrolled in school down there, too. At least for the time being.”

Sam nods, but it’s almost grotesque, like a puppet on a string. “Oh,” he says, and it sounds very hollow. Sam’s reaction is a bit more extreme than Dean had been expecting. Yeah, it’s their first hunt as just the two of them, but they’ve been out of commission for almost two months now. It’s high past time they got back to work.

“Sam?” Dean asks carefully, reaching out a hand to touch Sam’s shoulder, but before he makes contact Sam is fumbling awkwardly out of bed in a way that makes sure he doesn’t brush up against Dean. He heads into the bathroom, comes back out a moment later with his toiletries stuffed into the dirty Ziploc bag he carries them in between stops.

“Sammy?” Dean asks again.

His brother bends downs, Dean watching the way his skin shifts over the lines of his ribs, and gets his duffle bag off the floor. He finally looks up at Dean as he tosses the bag onto the other side of the bed. “Yeah?”

“Are you—I mean, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, Dean,” Sam says, same hollow tone, and starts picking up dirty clothes and scattered books off the floor, tucking them into the camo print bag.

Dean squeezes his fingers into his muscle above his knees until it aches. “Are you sure?” he presses.

“Aren’t you gonna pack?” Sam says instead of answering.

“Aren’t you gonna eat?” Dean counters, pushing the bagel Sam had abandoned on the bed in his direction.

Sam’s knuckles go white briefly around the sweatshirt he’s holding. After a beat he pulls it on over his head, zips up the duffle. “I’m not hungry,” he says quietly, and then he’s walking toward the door, grabbing the keys off the dresser as he goes. “I’ll be in the car.”

Dean stares at the point of light shining through the peep hole for a long moment before he gets up to pack his stuff, too.

***

Georgia, Dean thinks, is pretty all right. Madison is quaint like all small towns, pretty in the middle and rough around the edges. There’s an old gas station where Dean gets a job as an attendant and gets half-off farm fresh eggs and soda in glass bottles, and a church on every corner, and nothing opens before noon on Sundays so Dean never has to feel bad about tucking Sam back under his arm and going back to sleep when Sam tries to wake him up with the sun to go running. It’s hot, but the intense humidity of summer starts to melt away a couple of weeks into their stay. Even better, the trailer they’re renting has an A/C unit in the window that blows out air so frigid even Dean’s started leaving it off during the daytime when no one’s home.

The high school is surprisingly big and nice, and Sam seems to like it well enough. Based on his classes from past schools, the administrators put him in with the sophomores, and Dean would be worried about how much smaller he is than the other kids if he didn’t know Sam could handle himself. Sometimes Dean sort of misses the Sammy that would come home and run on and on about everything he’d done and learned and how Tim Cooper was making a real robot for the science fair wasn’t that so cool and Sam would like to build a robot sometime himself, but he doesn’t mind this version, either, the Sammy that makes them both an afternoon snack before he starts his homework and makes occasional commentary at the pages of his novels for English class while Dean sits on the couch with him and murmurs to Dean at night about the problem he got right in algebra, getting the skin of Dean’s shoulder all sticky warm with the heat of his breath.

Hunting, though, is more difficult now. For one, they’re both still so young. Dean can pose as a repairman or a journalist or a college student, and Sam can be some kid from the school newspaper, but their options are pretty limited, which seems to result in the commission of a lot more misdemeanors and minor felonies than Dean would strictly like them to be involved in. But they don’t have much of a choice, so they make do.

Plus, while he’d sort of expected Sam to warm up to the idea, and Sam helps with the research and sneaks into the morgue and searches cemetery records, something about him is just…off. Like he’s one step removed from the situation, his brain telling his body what to do but his mind as elsewhere as he can make it. But what they’re doing, it’s  _important_ , so when they torch the first ghost (a former slave taking out his anger by destroying the very fields he was once forced to tend—and any people or livestock that happened to be in or around them) and Dean gets wind of some suspicious obituaries from a town a few hours away, he ignores the way Sam’s mouth goes tight and drives them out on the weekends until they solve that one, too (an estuary spirit, angry because new construction had caused a dangerous inflow of salt water that was destroying the ecosystem he oversaw. Sam didn’t want to just kill it, said the spirit had a point. Dean insisted that they couldn’t have it killing tourists every single time it got pissed, so they’d split the baby, banishing the water spirit and reporting the contractor to the local environmental division.).

When they’re done, he tries to make it up to Sam by taking them down the coast. They spend four days squatting in a beach house that’s empty for the season, and waste hours watching the surf, Dean sitting in the sand with Sam’s head in his lap, fingers working through the salty stiffness that the wind tangles into Sam’s shaggy hair. On the last day, Dean dares his little brother to go into the water, so Sam strips down to his boxers, screaming like a little girl as the frigid November seawater slips up past his waist (Dean will never let him live that down), and then promptly refuses to come out until Dean comes in, too. Dean can see Sam’s lips turning blue from the shore, so he pulls off his clothes, grumbling under his breath about idiot baby brothers and all the goddamn trouble they cause, and then he’s shoulder deep in what feels like an ice bath with all five feet of Sam trying to get his head under the dark blue water. Sam dares him to stay in for five minutes, Dean dares Sam to stay in for ten, they both chicken out after three and stumble numbly out of the waves, fingers too frozen to get back into their jeans, so they curl up under a blanket in the backseat of the Impala, salt-sticky skin catching as they shift around to get the blood into their muscles, until warmth tingles back into Dean’s fingertips.

“We’re idiots,” Sam says after long moments of silence, and then they’re both laughing so hard they can’t breathe, the pleasant ache of it lingering in Dean’s gut all the way home.

***

They finish up the semester (Sam makes straight As,  _shocking_ ) and a third hunt in the Low Country of South Carolina (black dog, and wouldn’t Dad be angry they’d taken it on just the two of them), and then a few days before Christmas they’re smushed together in the double bed, three blankets over them because the heater is busted. Dean’s on his side, facing the far wall and thumbing through a magazine, with Sam’s back pressed against his.  

He feels Sam shift and roll over, and then Sam’s cold fingers are worming their way into the space between his arms and his sides. He’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but even so he can feel the chill. Sam’s been getting taller lately, grown at least a couple of inches since they settled down here, and his circulation seems to be struggling to keep up.

Dean drops the magazine, rolls over himself so that he’s facing his brother. Their legs tangle together out of habit, Dean’s on the bottom, Sam’s, Dean’s, Sam’s again. He takes Sam’s hands, tucks them under his own shirt so they’re pressed against his stomach. The brush of contact sends a shiver down his spine, but the pleased, half-lidded look that slips over Sam’s face at the sudden warmth is worth dealing with the chill.

They’re quiet for a moment, Dean watching Sam and Sam staring down somewhere in the vicinity of where his hands are hidden by Dean’s shirt.

Sam flips his hands over to warm the backs of them. He looks up, and Dean knows he’s been caught staring. But all Sam says is, “Are we staying here?”

The question catches Dean off guard. “Do you want to?” he responds.

Sam shrugs, gets that faraway look that consumes him sometimes. “I  _should_  want to,” he replies.

“But….” Dean cups a hand over Sam’s shoulder, gives it a little squeeze to guide him back to now, away from thinking about what their life was like, what  _they_  were like, before.

Sam bites his lower lip, and Dean watches a flush of white appear and disappear just as quickly. “But. I don’t know, Dean. The other kids they don’t—they don’t understand. I don’t understand  _them_. And people have started to, you know, ask questions.”

Dean’s hackles are up instantly. “Questions?” he presses.

“You know.” Sam shrugs. His legs try to shift where they’re sandwiched around Dean’s, and Dean knows if he were standing he’d be shuffling his feet. “First it was just Brandon, you know?” Dean remembers Sam talking about the boy who shared several gifted level classes with him. “Asking about coming over and stuff.”

“Mhmm, I remember, he came over after school one day.”

“Yeah well….” Sam sighs, tucks his head under Dean’s chin the way he always does when he’s talking about something he doesn’t want to. “I guess he told some of the other kids about…about how I lived here and, I tried to tell them, you know, how you were my guardian and Dad was just away on business but….I dunno. I guess it got around. And then right before finals, they sent me to the school counselor.”

“What did you say?” Dean asks, and it comes out much more sharply than he’d intended.

Sam pulls back, gives him a look that’s somehow both earnest and pissed off because he’s a teenager and he seems to consistently be suffering through—and making Dean suffer through—thirty-seven emotions at once. “Nothing! You know I wouldn’t give anything away!”

Dean sighs, cups his hand over the curve of Sam’s neck and lets his thumb rub soothingly under his brother’s jaw. “I know, sorry. I just—it’s none of their fucking business.”

“No,” Sam agrees, “’s not. But it made me think, you know, maybe we should just…move on. The way we used to.”

“Maybe,” Dean agrees, and the room goes quiet for a long minute. Dean lets Sam go, and they shift around to their normal sleeping position, Sam tucked up under Dean’s arm, head on his shoulder, leg over his waist. Dean settles the blankets over them, closes his eyes.

Sam’s fingers toy idly with the collar of Dean’s shirt. “It’s funny,” he says softly, tilting his chin up so the words slip right into Dean’s ear, just for the two of them. “I used to think all I wanted was to settle down. Now we actually could, but I just…I don’t care.”

“No?” Dean asks, letting his fingers run up and down over the arm Sam has across his chest.

“No,” Sam agrees. “Doesn’t matter if I have you,” he continues, voice gentle and sleepy, and then tilts his head down, a brush of eyelashes on Dean’s neck as he closes his eyes, and it’s only moments before Dean feels the huff of soft, even breaths against his skin.

Dean pulls Sam in tighter, wrapping him in both arms so he’s sprawled half-across Dean’s chest, and lets his eyes fall closed.

***

They leave before the New Year, because Sam points out that all the schools will start back shortly after and they’ll be scrambling to get him registered if they wait. Dean asks him where, he says somewhere with snow. Dean puts in a few calls, and Sam reads through some newspapers. They find a handful of possible cases in and around Colorado, so they pack up a few days after Christmas and head west.

They stop to watch the sunrise together at the Grand Canyon on New Year’s Day, and the way Dean's heart beats while they huddle together under a blanket on the hood of the car and share a thermos full of lukewarm coffee—it might just feel like being happy.

 

******

 

Dean thinks sometimes about stopping, but he doesn’t know how. Even after everything, hunting still makes him feel right, like all the terrible pieces of his shitty life click and make sense just for a moment. Dean’s lost nearly everything, and without hunting, it’s all for nothing. But if he’s not giving up, if he’s still saving people, still offing the sons of bitches that go bump in the night, then maybe he has a shot at making his life mean something. Something other than senseless loss and growing up too fast.

The only other thing in his life that feels so right is Sam.

 

******

_1998_

******

 

Sam wheedles Dean throughout the months of January, February, and March until Dean finally agrees to get his GED because, Sam insists, it’ll be easier for him to get jobs and Dean’s the main one supporting them now. Which is probably true, but Dean’s not planning to admit it any time soon. School was always way (way) below his radar, but just because he never particularly cared doesn’t mean he’s an idiot, so he doesn’t even have to study to pass. And Sam dimples up in a huge smile every time he looks at Dean for three days after Dean gets his results, so it’s sort of worth it even without the whole job thing.

 

******

 

By the time Sam turns fifteen, he’s just a few inches shorter than Dean and suffers growing pains everywhere from his shins to his ears. Aches that make him restless and shifty in their bed, kicking out in his sleep and lying awake for hours. Dean wakes up to Sam’s eyes on him so many times, he’s starting to dream about it, about the wide stretch of Sam’s pupils in the dark, the play of his fingers up and down Dean’s torso in a way Dean’s aware of even in his sleep. About his own hands on Sam, massaging away the pain until Sam is relaxed and pliant and finally able to drift off again.

For his birthday, Dean gives Sam several bottles of prescription painkillers that Sam rolls his eyes at before storing them in the first aid kit for “ _actual emergencies, you moron_ ” and a brand new Latin dictionary. Dean makes from-scratch pancakes with cream cheese frosting and sprinkles, a single candle stuck right in the middle of Sam’s short stack. The tiny flame reflects bright in Sam’s eyes as he watches Dean sing him ‘Happy Birthday’ with a grin on his face that says Sam’s gonna give him shit for this sometime later, but watching the way Sam’s smile goes soft and real when Dean belts out “and many moooooore” squeaky and off-key, the way Sam digs into his pancake birthday cake with extreme gusto, makes Dean willing to deal with the consequences.

They’re quiet, just eating, for a long moment, and it’s comfortable in a way that settles deep into Dean’s bones. But then Sam says “Thanks, big bro” with a half-chewed rainbow swirl of pancakes in his mouth. Dean hits him in the face with a pillow, and Sam laughs until he starts choking.

 

******

 

School gets out in the first week of June, and they hit the road. Sam’s mapped out a circle of hunts up and around the west coast (small nest of vampires ( _real_ freaking vampires which are apparently  _not_  extinct), some sort of furry trout thing, and an enormous hoop snake). They’re between Arizona and New Mexico when Dean realizes they’re close to one of Dad’s old P.O. boxes. He and Sam never touched the money in the account that Dad used to pay for them (had never touched anything of Dad’s, really), but Dean talks it over with Sam, decides there’s no reason to keep it open under John Winchester’s name anymore. Only when he goes to close it, there’s mail waiting, including a letter from Bingham & Sanders, LLP.

He carefully tears open the envelope, pulls out the enclosed pages, reads them through twice. Hands it to Sam, who reads it over a few times himself, eyebrows disappearing under his bangs more and more each time he starts over.

“Should we call them?” Sam asks.

“I guess,” Dean replies. He gestures at a somewhat seedy looking place a few hundred feet down the road that has signs advertising jerk chicken, fish, and roti. “Go get us some lunch. I’ll call.”

Once Sam’s headed out, Dean pulls out his phone, punches in the ten-digit number. It rings twice.

“Good afternoon, Bingham and Sanders.” The voice is male, cool, polite.

“Uh,” Dean says stupidly, staring at the letter in his hands. “I got this…I got a letter,” he starts, and then he’s explaining the whole situation, ends up on the phone with one of the firm’s lawyers for half an hour, scribbling notes on the back of a receipt and watching Sam walk back from the chicken shack, pull himself up on the hood of the car, start setting out the food.

Once Dean hangs up, he heads back over to where Sam is sitting, slides up to sit next to him so their shoulders are brushing. He feels weird, sort of surreal, and Sam being close always helps to force that feeling away. Sam passes him a Styrofoam cup, lets him take a few sips of cold Coke. It’s gray and overcast but still scorching hot, and Dean’s throat is dry from talking. Finally, Sam asks, “So, is it real?”

Dean sighs. “Yeah. He left us the whole place.”

Sam’s forehead wrinkles a little. “But…it’s been over two years, Dean. It has to have gone to the bank by now.”

But Dean shakes his head. “According to that lawyer, Bobby owned the whole thing, paid in full. And he had an account, it‘s been paying for the upkeep. Someone named…” he pulls the receipt out of his pocket, “…Sheriff Mills has been overseeing the property, had to clean up some of the cars because of environmental hazards with no one on-site. And there were a few other people in his will, hunters, I guess. Came and cleared out specific stuff he left to them. But uh, most of it’s still there. And whatever’s left is ours.”

Sam passes him a take-out container full of chicken and yellow rice dotted with little green peas. They eat in silence for a few minutes. “What do we do?” Sam asks finally.

“Dunno. What do you want to do?”

“Honestly? Nothing. I mean, it’s taking care of itself right now, right?”

“Right. And I gave them my real number, in case there were ever any problems or whatever.”

Sam nods like he thinks that was smart. “I just…I don’t think I’m ready to deal with it. Later, we’ll have to. But..I mean….” He trails off, pokes uncertainly at his food.

Dean puts his Coke between his knees, wraps an arm around Sam, pulls him under his sweaty armpit, feels Sam relax into him immediately. “I know,” is all he says. He holds Sam there for a minute before releasing him. They eat the rest of their food in silence, watching the gray sky.

***

They wrap up Sam’s list of found hunts in northern Texas, mid-July. It’s a pretty nasty poltergeist, one worth celebrating, but when Dean asks Sam where they should head next, Sam pushes his sunglasses up on top of his head, turns to look at Dean from where he’s sprawled out in the sun on an old, rusted pool lounger, and says, “Let’s stay.” So they do.

Sam fakes a certification and gets a job as a lifeguard at the public pool to make some extra cash (“it’s not like I don’t know  _how_  to do all the stuff they do”), develops a horrendous farmer’s tan and burns so often on his nose that it’s constantly peeling. He grumbles about awkward tan lines for what feels like weeks before Dean starts to come home in the afternoons from his job as a grocery clerk to Sam’s skinny body laid out in nothing but tighty whities on the little balcony attached to their by-the-month rental suite, tan lines on his chest and arms slowly disappearing, and Dean can’t help but wonder if he’s laying out there completely naked when Dean’s not at home, because he keeps noticing the increasing un-paleness of Sam’s ass when Sam goes to shower. Dean sort of wants to say something, because really who tans naked like that and where anyone could see him when he gets up and lazily swings a towel around his hips before coming inside? It’s ridiculous. Sam is ridiculous and embarrassing, which is supposed to be Dean’s job. He is the older brother, after all.

And then, too quick, Sam’s back in school. Dean gets promoted to shift supervisor because the old one starts college classes and can’t work enough hours for the job, so they can actually afford to eat meat every once in a while. They hunt on the weekends. They ramble on.

 

******

 

Dean lets out a little sigh as he ineffectually tries to rub engine grease off his hands with a gray rag. He slams the hood of the maroon Corolla shut and uses a much cleaner rag to buff his smudged fingerprints off the paint. It definitely gets a little old—oil change after oil change, rotate, balance, check the filter, check the wipers. Things he could always do in his sleep, but now they’ve reached a whole new level of monotony. Still, he’s not complaining. This is the best job with the steadiest pay he’s had in probably the last five towns, and he likes knowing he’s gonna be able to feed Sam and himself lunch each and every day. They’d been forced to pack up halfway through fall semester when a couple of do-gooder community members had taken a little too much interest in the brothers with no father, found themselves across the state line. Dean thinks that it might have been a piece of luck, despite the rush and Sam’s unhappiness about getting out so quickly (apparently he’d actually liked his physics teacher), because Oklahoma’s been treating them pretty well and also leaving them the hell alone.

He gets the car cleaned up and pulls it out of the garage, around to one of the parking spaces in front of the office. A girl waiting on a bench out front stands up and smiles as he pulls around. He offers her a small smile in return as he climbs out of the car.

“All settled up, Ms. Atwell?” he asks, tossing her keys up in the air and catching them one-handed as she passes over her invoice.

“Please,” she says, her cheeks pinking slightly under his gaze, “I’ve told you, it’s Zoe.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

Dean glances down at the invoice. “Looks like you’re all set.” He passes the invoice back to her along with her keys, fingertips brushing lightly against the palm of her hand. Zoe’s been by three times in the last six weeks, always with some basic maintenance problem—new tires, oil change, a new air filter. Always on the days Dean’s working, and she always sits where she can see the garage while she waits for her car even though it’s chilly outside.

It’s sort of flattering but also makes Dean feel a little uncomfortable in his own skin, and then weird all over again for feeling that way.

Zoe ducks her head a little. She’s cute—blonde and petite with a great rack and a penchant for wearing dresses that are just short enough to make it interesting. Two years ago, Dean would have been all over her. Now, though, now Dean can’t even seem to muster up the energy to  _want_. Between working and hunting and Sam, he doesn’t have the time to take a girl on a date, barely even makes it out to bars to hookup every once in a while to keep his dick from falling off with disuse. He knows it should probably bother him more than it does. He’s nineteen, for fuck’s sake; he’s not supposed to be content with nothing but his brother and his right hand for company.

“Listen, Dean,” Zoe starts again, and Dean realizes he’s been sort of drifting. She’s biting her lower lip and looking anywhere but at his face, and his stomach goes sour. “I was just wondering if, um, maybe you’d want to see a movie with me? Or-or something?”

Dean makes a conscious effort not to let his frown show on his face. He feels sort of bad about his mild attempts at flirting with her now; he’d honestly pinned her as the type to look from afar without ever actually saying anything. And now he gets the dubious honor of letting her down gently.

Except maybe…maybe this would be good for him. He’s supposed to be going on dates, right? Sam hates it when he’s gone at night, but then Sam would probably want him doing “normal” stuff like dating. Not that it matters if Sam wants him to go on dates; Dean’s an adult, he can make these decisions for himself.

Zoe is looking more and more dejected by the second, and Dean quickly focuses his attention back on her.

“Zoe,” he starts carefully. “I—I want to but—,” her face falls even more. “Well the thing is, I take care of my little brother, so I gotta talk to him, make arrangements, okay?

“Oh!” she says, and Dean winces inwardly at how bright it is. “Oh, okay! Wow, that’s really sweet of you. I mean, I totally understand!”

Dean scratches the back of his neck. “Cool. So, uh, maybe I could call you?”

Zoe is beaming like the sun, and Dean feels sort of guilty because he should probably be that excited, too. But baby steps are good, he supposes, and he offers Zoe a smile as she tears out a page from a little notebook in her purse, scribbles down her number, passes it over to him. He makes a show of folding it carefully and tucking it in his back pocket.

“So, I’ll just wait to hear from you, then?” she asks, and she sounds happy but also like she’s making sure he’s not blowing her off.

“Yeah, I’ll call soon,” Dean replies. He watches her get into her sensible Japanese car and drive away with a little wave that he doesn’t return. He stares out across the cracked cement parking lot for a long minute, nothing in his head but a vague sense of foreboding, before he finally shakes himself out of it and heads back toward the garage.

***

He makes it home before Sam gets back from his Wednesday indoor intramural soccer practice, so he’s perfectly situated to hear Sam come up the steps to their little rental house much more heavily than usual. Dean’s already turning around in his seat, craning his neck as Sam slumps through the screen door, letting it bang shut behind him, and tosses down his sports bag, lets his book bag slide carelessly off his shoulder and onto the floor by the door, kicks out of his shoes. All of which is a lot unlike Sam, who tries to be fastidious about putting his things away in an attempt to encourage Dean to do the same, since Sam’s the one who has to pick everything up when they do chores.

“Heya, Sammy,” Dean says carefully, because Sam’s fifteen and frankly, Dean has no idea what’s upsetting him this time but he does know he doesn’t really want to make it worse. Even though he already knows he’s going to.

Sam doesn’t respond, just unzips his hoodie as he walks over to the living room, tossing it down on the coffee table before he flings himself down on the couch in a way that’s somehow both dramatic and subdued, one leg half over Dean’s thighs and neck on the armrest, head forward and eyes closed. Dean slides his hands gently down the leg in his lap, pushes up the hem of Sam’s gray sweatpants, digs his fingers down into the muscle and tries to massage away the tightness lingering from Sam’s practice. It’s quiet for long minutes until he hits a particularly vicious knot, down and to the right of Sam’s knee, and Sam groans, head lolling back over the curve of the armrest to expose the column of his throat. Dean feels a shiver run under his skin, Sam’s leg hair rubbing wrong against his palms.

He drags his thumbs down either side of Sam’s shinbone from the knee, feels the shudder of Sam’s muscles as he moves down to work over the oddly delicate bones of Sam’s ankle, the calloused pads of his feet.

Sam shifts to move his other leg where Dean can get at it, but Dean taps lightly on his knee in a way that means  _quid pro quo, little brother_. “Bad day?” he asks, pushing up the sweatpants on the new leg.

Sam’s head rolls back over the armrest, hair sticking up messily, eyes falling on Dean. “This kid on my soccer team, Jonathan, he was uh…he was saying all of this terrible stuff about—about his mom.”

_Ah, a very bad day then._

“Just, nasty stuff, man,” Sam sighs out, quiet. “Calling her a bitch and—” he trails off into silence.

“Did you say something?” Dean asks, because it’s clear at least that Sam didn’t get into a fight today, no telltale swelling of his knuckles or split lip.

Sam just shakes his head, eyes unfocused now and staring off into the middle distance, but Dean can tell there’s more, so he just patiently works over Sam’s leg and waits. He never used to have this kind of patience, but being alone with Sam all the time, this Sam who is quiet and introspective but still, ultimately, always needs to share, forced him to learn.

“Sometimes,” Sam finally says, “I’m pretty sure you’re the only person who’s ever gonna understand me.” His eyes focus on Dean’s again, something intense and sad in his look. “But that’s okay, I mean. I wouldn’t wish our lives on anyone else, you know?”

Dean nods, because he does know and because he doesn’t ever  _want_  anyone to know Sam like he does. It’s something for the two of them, something they’ll always have no matter where they go in life. He tickles his fingers up the bottom of Sam’s bare foot to break the tension, and Sam snorts and tries to twist away.

“Not fair!” he protests, swinging his feet down to the floor.

“Not fair that I gotta deal with your stink,” Dean counters, shoving into Sam’s side. “Go shower, I’ll order pizza.”

“I want mushrooms,” Sam demands, tugging his shirt over his head as he heads down the hall to the single bedroom they share. Dean smiles, watching him go.

By the time Sam comes back to the living room with damp hair, no shirt, and an older pair of sweatpants that’s much too small for him now, sitting low on his hips and ending inches above his ankle, the pizza (sausage and mushroom) has already arrived. Dean smirks at his brother over his paper plate. “Took you awhile. Have fun in there?”

Sam’s perfect for teasing, because no matter the amount of irritation in the look he throws back at Dean, his cheeks pink up undeniably. “Shut up,” he replies, nice and succinct, grabbing himself a few slices before he joins Dean on the couch. Dean almost suggests that he take a few more—he’s looking skinnier than ever now that he’s hit another growth spurt and shot up to be just a few inches shorter than Dean—but instead he just turns up the TV, an old western on AMC, and they eat in a silence that should be comfortable but isn’t, because he’s just waiting for the right time to bring up the whole Zoe thing.

The thing is, Dean thinks as Sam puts down his plate, lays himself down so his head is in Dean’s lap, facing the TV, squirming until Dean drops an arm down over his shoulder—the thing is, they both know that Sam isn’t happy when Dean’s not home. That Sam doesn’t trust anyone who tries to get close to Dean, doesn’t want to get close to anyone himself. He never says anything about it, never complains, but it’s impossible for Dean to live with Sam like he does and not know. And it’s not like Dean can blame him; Sam’s never actually asked to spend the night at a friend’s house, but if he did, Dean’s pretty sure he’d be watching the phone all night, if he weren’t sitting across the street from the kid’s house in the Impala (just in case). It’s not like Sam’s ever gone on a date, but Dean feels a niggling sense of unease any time Sam’s out of his sight, especially when Sam’s with other people, unknown people, because _anything_  could happen and Dean wouldn’t be there to keep him safe.

Dean slides his fingers through the damp mop of Sam’s hair. “Hey, Sam?” Sam grunts. Lovely. “So, there’s, uh…this girl. She asked me out at work today.”

Sam rolls onto his back so he’s looking up at Dean now, gaze so heavy Dean can feel it. “What’s her name?”

“Um, it’s Zoe.”

Sam nods, but the intensity of his look doesn’t lessen, feels like it’s pressing a little on Dean’s lungs. “She pretty?”

Dean sort of shrugs. “Yeah, sure.”

“So are you going?”

“Well, I told her, ah…I mean, I wanted to okay it with you first. So, is it okay?”

Sam sort of smiles at him, something a little soft and a little fond and a lot sad. “Yeah, Dean. ‘S okay. You don’t have to get my permission.”

“Well, maybe I just like to.”

Sam sits up, Dean’s hand falling away from its perch on his head. “When?”

“I dunno. Friday, maybe?” Sam hmms. “I won’t stay out late. Just take her to an early dinner, okay? Be back before nine.”

“Not much of a good time to show a girl on a Friday night, Dean,” Sam says, tone mocking. The play of light from the TV on his bare chest gives his skin a pearly gray tint.

Dean licks his lips. “Yeah but she’ll understand. I told her that I have responsibilities.”

No one but Dean could have detected Sam’s flinch, visible in a quick not-even flicker of his eyelids, and Dean could punch himself because if there’s one thing Sam hates, it’s being reminded that he’s a burden on Dean’s life. Which he isn’t,  _at all_ , he’s the only thing in Dean’s life that  _doesn’t_  weigh him down most of the time, but it’s impossible to convince Sam of that.

“Dinner and a movie, at least,” is all Sam says back, patting Dean on the thigh as he stands up.

“Don’t—don’t you wanna finish the movie?”

Sam shakes his head. “Tired. I’m gonna get ready for bed,” he replies, heading down the hallway without another look.

Dean sighs heavily, tips his head back on the couch cushions.

***

When Dean lets himself through the front door at half past eleven on Friday night, Sam’s stretched out on the couch under a blanket. The lights are off, the TV’s on something black and white, and Sam’s eyes are closed, breathing even. It’s all fake, of course, and Dean can tell even in the low light, but he knows it means something to Sam, that he needs to believe that Dean believes he gets by just fine when Dean’s gone. So Dean shuts the door quietly behind himself, toes out of his boots, fists his keys tight before he sets them down on the counter so they won’t jingle freely.

When he steps up to the back of the couch, Sam’s blinking up at him slowly. “Hey, Dean,” he says quietly.

“Hey.” Dean reaches out, brushes the bangs off his forehead, watches Sam’s eyes flutter closed and open again.

“Did you have fun?”

Dean shrugs, ruffling through Sam’s hair to mess up the rearranging he just did. He moves around the armrest, and Sam shifts to sit up and make room for him so he can settle down on the saggy cushion next to his brother.

Did he have fun? Hard not to have a good time with a girl who smiles at you over the check for your mid-grade Italian dinner and says ‘let’s skip the movie,’ brings you back to her place and sucks your brain right out through your cock. Then again, he’d probably have had more fun if he hadn’t spent the entire time with Sam heavy on the back of his mind, worrying about his little brother worrying, and even when her soft little hand had been down his pants, he couldn’t stop thinking about Sam, alone in the bed they shared, couldn’t stop wondering what Sam was doing.

He reaches out one arm and pulls Sam into him, tucks him right up under his armpit so that Sam’s skull is resting on his collarbone. “It was all right,” he says finally, tucking his chin down to rest against Sam’s head. “What are we watching?”

“ _The Thing_ ,” Sam replies, and he worms one of his hands between Dean’s back and the couch, bones of his wrist grinding across Dean’s spine and ribs until the arm settles around Dean’s chest, other arm coming up to rest low on Dean’s waist.

“An excellent choice.”

They watch for a few quiet minutes before Sam asks, “Are you gonna go out with her again?”

Dean looks down at the messy part of his brother’s hair, the way the locks are straight at the top but start curling near his ears, feels the way his back rises and falls against Dean’s chest as he breathes, smells sweat and cheap soap and fruity shampoo because Sam likes to shower twice a day when he can get away with it. His brother is warm and soft in his arms, and he tucks his fingers under the edge of Sam’s blanket so he can rub little circles into his bare skin. “Don’t think so,” he answers.

Dean knows they’re fucked up, knows it fundamentally. Knows it’s not healthy, the way they cling to each other, the way they push everyone else away before they get too close, the way they are desperately, constantly afraid that they might lose each other. But he also knows that he loves it, thrives on it, this feeling of Sam needing him, wanting to keep Dean for himself, and no woman, no man, no one can make Dean feel the way Sam makes him feel, can fill up his heart and his mind with a sense of aching completeness, can make him feel honestly, genuinely happy despite all the circumstances of his life. So maybe it’s not right, only wanting this, but Dean’s holding on for as long as he can. One day, Sam’s going to be old enough to move on. Sure they’ll always be close, always be brothers bonded together by blood and violence and the time when they had nothing but each other, but until then, until Sam is ready for the next part of his life, the one that means Dean raised him successfully in spite of everything? Until then, he’s not going to worry about it. He’s got everything he needs, right here in his arms, and fuck all the rest of it.

“I’m glad you’re home, Dean,” Sam says, rubbing his cheek against Dean’s t-shirt.

“Me too, Sammy.” He lays his palm flat on Sam’s bicep, squeezes gently, then fixes his attention back on the TV.

 

******

_1999_

******

 

“Your spring break’s in two weeks,” Dean says one night over dinner, Hamburger Helper made with ground pork because it’s cheaper. “Need to start planning.” Sam only gets a week, so they’ve figured out it’s important to have a few small hunts locked down in advance in order to have enough time to wrap them all up before Sam has to be back.

Sam nudges the noodles around in his bowl before he finally drops his fork. Something’s been bothering him for at least the past week. Dean knows, because he’s doing that thing where he barely eats enough to get by, the bumps of his spine more prominent when Dean runs fingers down the skin of Sam’s back as they fall asleep. But Dean’s also learned the hard way that pushing  _that_  issue is never particularly successful until Sam’s willing to actually talk about what’s really on his mind.

“I was thinking that, um…” Sam’s eyes drop away and he thumbs at the scuffed wood of the table. “Maybe we should go to Uncle Bobby’s.”

“Oh?” Dean replies, and it’s a little flat. It’s not that he’d forgotten about Bobby’s; it’s more than he’d specifically avoided thinking about it. Part of him wants to stamp his feet and whine  _do we have to_ , but he’s the adult here. “Are you sure?”

Sam gives a dry little laugh and shoves his bowl towards Dean like he thinks his brother is a human garbage disposal. “No.” He finally looks up at Dean, eyes soft and a little scared through the fringe of his bangs. "But I figured we gotta start sometime.” He sighs and pushes back from the table, scratching over the center of his bare chest where Dean knows he’d see bones if Sam didn’t have a layer of lean muscle.

“Okay,” Dean agrees. “Now, finish your dinner.”

“Yeah okay, Mom.” Sam rolls his eyes, fiddles with the condensation on his glass of water.

“Yeah Mom,  _and_  Dad, so finish it,” Dean insists, shoving the bowl back across the table and crossing his arms, jaw firm.

Sam sighs heavily; Dean tracks it through the heave of his shoulders and all the way down the taut lines of his belly. He reluctantly picks up his fork.

***

The house looks just the same, which is expected but still amps up the unsettled buzz that’s been humming under Dean’s skin since they hit the 44. There’s a few less cars in the yard, and once they make it inside, some noticeable gaps on tables and shelves where objects have been taken, but it’s the same dark, dusty conflagration of stuff that it was when it was still inhabited.

It’s already near dark by the time they make it. It was a nine hour drive from Oklahoma, and they’d stopped by the sheriff’s station on the way into town to pick up the key from Jodie Mills, who seemed sharp and feisty and made Dean a little worried with the way she just watched them, but she’d handed it over eventually. Dean lets them in, flips on lights that take a minute to flicker to life. Sam drops their duffels on the kitchen table with a heavy thud and then slouches back against them. “So, where should we start?”

Dean holds up his hands, palms out. “Your idea to come here, dude. I’m just following your plan.” Sam starts picking idly at a scab on his elbow, and Dean turns away, checking through the kitchen cabinets, which are fortunately all empty. The fridge is pulled out from the wall and unplugged, and Dean makes a mental note to pick up a Styrofoam cooler since they’re here for the next five days. By the time he’s done, Sam’s moved quietly out of the room and disappeared somewhere into the house.

Dean finds him in Bobby’s study, a stack of books pulled off one of the shelves on the desk in front of him. He’s flipping through them and sorting them into smaller piles; Dean watches his lips move as he mutters to himself while he works.

Dean leans against the doorframe. “Okay, kiddo, what’s the plan?”

“Not a kid,” Sam answers back, finishing up with the book in his hands—it looks ancient and crumbly in its worn black leather bindings. Dean’s hands feel grimy just looking at it. He sets the thing into one of his side piles, then looks up. “I think…I think we have to start by getting organized. There’s so much here—a whole bunch of resources that people could need, but Bobby was the only one who knew where everything was. I mean, I know some stuff, but we didn’t spend  _that_  much time here when I was actually old enough to be helpful.”

Dean doesn’t even bother trying to repress his sigh. “So you want me to organize books? Great.”

“Well,” Sam starts, doesn’t go on. He looks down at the next book in his stack, walks long, nimble fingers across the cover. Sam’s hands have changed so much since he started growing, from short-fingered and chubby to thin and capable. Strong hands. Hunter’s hands. Dean likes the way they show the man Sam’s becoming, the man Dean’s helped him become.

Eventually, Sam looks at him again, eyes a little wet behind the lashes. “I mean, one of us has to go through Bobby’s actual…stuff. Like, his clothes and…anything else we need to just clean out of here or donate or whatever. And at some point, we need to look through the junkyard, decide what to do with all the cars and everything. But,” he glances at the window behind him, clearly dark even behind the blinds, “it’s too late for that tonight.”

Dean frowns down at his own hands. “I dunno, Sam.” It’s one thing to organize all of the miscellaneous hunting stuff Bobby’d managed to acquire over the years, but the idea of going through Bobby’s things is really not a pleasant one. Bobby had always been more than willing to open his home to them, but he was still a private man; it feels wrong to dig through his life when he isn’t there to defend it anymore.

Then again, like Sam said, someone has to do it. Whatever they're gonna do with this place in the long run, it’ll have to be taken care of at some point.

Dean’s clearly been quiet for too long, because Sam says in barely a whisper, “I don’t wanna do it by myself, Dean,” and it’s the way Sam’s voice breaks on his name that has Dean moving across the room, pulling Sam into his chest. Sam doesn’t really cry that often anymore now that he’s older. Instead, he just sort of shakes, all that emotion rippling back and forth across tense lines of muscle as he grips those capable fingers into the fabric over Dean’s ribs and Dean holds on, slips his hands up under the hems of Sam’s shirts, right onto the warm skin of his back, rubs up and down gently the same way he does when they’re in bed and Sam has a nightmare.

“We’ll do it together, Sammy, okay?” He feels his brother’s chin shift against his shoulder like he’s nodding. “Tomorrow, we’ll get all of that stuff done, and then it’ll be over with, yeah?” Sam nods again. “And then you can geek out over Bobby’s book collection because it’s not like you’d be any help near those cars.” Sam’s laugh huffs over the skin of his neck.

They work on the study for a couple hours that night, stopping only to eat sandwiches they’d gotten to-go at the diner where they’d had lunch. When it comes time to go to bed, neither of them suggests sleeping in Bobby’s room, even though the queen mattress would fit them a lot more comfortably than the twins in the spare. Bobby would’ve hated them moving furniture, but he’s not exactly around to complain, so they finally decide to push the nightstand off to the side and shove the two twins together to make one bed they can actually share.

The next day, they stick to the plan, packing up as much as they’re sure they don’t need into some spare cardboard boxes Dean finds in the basement. They take everything they can down to the local Salvation Army in a pick-up from the front yard that Dean manages to get running by Monday afternoon, but a lot of the financial documents have to be put off to the side because neither of them have any idea what they’re looking at. By the time they leave on Saturday morning, Sam’s probably only halfway through Bobby’s book collection. There’s piles all over the house based on topic and language and origin of the source, and yet more piles for spell ingredients and charms and idols, and how Bobby even managed to accumulate all of this stuff, Dean has no idea. Dean, meanwhile, manages to get a complete written inventory of every useful part he could find in the yard.

They know they have to keep going back, keep working. It’s more obvious now that they’ve finally started how important it is. There’s not just no one answering the phones in Bobby’s kitchen; there’s a whole wealth of hunting lore that’s sitting untouched and unhelpful to people who might need it.

They don’t make any plans. Dean will wait for Sam to ask, and he just won’t say no.

 

******

 

Dean’s pretty sure that if science knew about all the things that go bump in the night, there would be some pretty solid evidence in support of the fact that poltergeists totally fucking  _suck_. They’re vicious and nasty and they don’t even have any style because they’re too busy coming down on you with all the fury and finesse of a hurricane. And the banishment ritual is even worse—Dean had thought it was so stupid that he even helped Sam do extra research just to make sure they didn’t have any other options. But no, three floors, four cardinal directions, a bunch of bags full of dirt and some other crap—all while under raging attack. A real recipe for success.

He’s going to do something  _really_  awesome for Sam’s birthday next week to make up for this.

They’ve somehow made it to the last bag on the second floor, although they’re definitely worse for wear. Dean’s bleeding from a dozen scrapes all over his hands and face, the result of a shattered lamp and an unnatural gust of wind in the den, and Sam’s got at least a black eye and maybe a cracked rib or two from being flung into some furniture. Sam’s manning a flashlight and the shotgun—he’d gotten the idea to put rock salt  _in_  the shells themselves, which shouldn’t be as revolutionary a concept as it is but Dean still thinks Sam’s even more of a genius than he did before—and he’s got a little arsenal of Latin under his belt that’s keeping some level of protection on them, but it’s unfortunately not much help as they’re heading down the hallway to the east bedroom, Sam on point and Dean in the rear, and the dry wall next to Sam _explodes_  with no warning. Sam goes down hard and Dean’s immediate instinct is to get on his knees, check on his brother, but it’s just the two of them in here and if he doesn’t finish this ritual, the whole house is gonna come down on top of them. Sam makes the decision a little easier, plaster-dusted fist shoving the gun in Dean’s direction with the command of “Go!” and Dean’s running forward, jumping Sam and grabbing the gun in one fluid motion.

He doesn’t go for finesse himself, just scans the room, makes a hasty determination of where the framing is probably located based on the build of the first floor, and starts kicking at the drywall. He thinks he might break a toe or two, but the wall crumbles under his assault, and he shoves in the spell bag, ignoring the burning scrape on his knuckles as more blood wells to the surface.

There’s a flood of blinding light that Dean buries his face in his arms to avoid, and then it’s suddenly quiet except for the sound of probably every loose object in the house falling out of the air and hitting the floor. Dean’s only got ears for one thing, though—the little groan coming from over by the door, where Sam’s managed to drag himself into the room and is slouched on the floor, head down. Dean’s across the room and down on his knees in the wreckage like he just teleported, hands on Sam’s jaw to force his head up. “Are you okay?” he asks, and it’s a lot weaker than he wants it to be. Sam’s hurt and he needs to be the strong one. Sam doesn’t respond, looks dazed, and Dean shakes his head gently. “Sammy!  _Are you okay_?”

Sam’s eyes finally come into focus on his face, and he says softly “Dean,” like it’s a prayer.

Dean doesn’t know who moves first, thinks that like everything else it’s probably both of them in tandem, always anticipating each other, movements like watch gears, seamless, together. He doesn’t know, but he’s staring at Sam’s eyes, hands on either side of his little brother’s face, and Sam is staring right back, blood dripping from a gash in his temple, skin dusted white so that he looks like he might be a ghost, too. They’re staring, breathing together, and then their mouths are on each other’s, open and wet and ready. Sam tastes like plaster dust and pennies, and Dean’s hands shift from gripping Sam’s face to cupping around his head, careful because he doesn’t know where all Sam is hurt. Sam lets out a little groan, pressing up onto his knees and into Dean, and Dean presses right back, feeling out the ridges of Sam’s teeth and soft palette, the rough slickness of his tongue.

It goes on for a long minute, long enough for Dean to be out of breath, panting softly and immediately licking at the taste of Sam’s spit left behind on his lips as Sam pulls away, Dean’s shirt still balled up in his fists. There’s a moment of staring again, and Dean can’t hear the debris settling or the house creaking or anything but Sam’s breath and his own pulse.

Then Sam says, “We should go before someone shows up,” and Dean nods.

“All right.”

Sam gets up first, offers his hand and pulls Dean up after him. He bends over to pick up his flashlight, and Dean stares at the bend of Sam’s spine. He feels off-balance, nauseous and light-headed and dizzy in a way he hasn’t been since he saw his first body.

Sam clicks on the flashlight, leads the way out of the house.

***

They don’t talk about it.

They don’t talk about it, but Sam wraps his arms around a pillow instead of Dean that night.

They don’t talk about it, but Dean sleeps on his stomach because every time he closes his eyes, the sense memory of wet pink lips, the tang of blood, the swoop and drop of his stomach, overtakes him, makes his cock twitch, until he finally drifts off with blue balls like he hasn’t had since he was fifteen.

 

******

 

The tension’s not unbearable, really. They couldn’t function if it were, being so insinuated in each other’s space and routines. Dean keeps getting one bed because the thought of actually trying to fall asleep with the blankets empty and cold and Sam’s warmth miles away bleeding into another mattress makes him feel something between ill and panicked. But he feels the sting every time Sam turns his back on Dean to fall asleep, and again every morning when Sam’s already gone by the time he wakes up. He doesn’t acknowledge it, though, because that would mean acknowledging things like he’s used to waking up in his brother’s arms, used to Sam staying in bed even when he always wakes up first, breathing warmly into the space between Dean’s neck and shoulder or brushing his fingers through Dean’s hair while he watches Dean sleep. Things like he knows what it feels like to have Sam’s morning wood pressed up against his hip, even if they both ignore it. Things like he’s woken up early to find Sam not in the bed and listened to Sam get rid of that morning wood in the bathroom before sliding back in next to him so Dean could comfortably fall asleep again.

Okay, so maybe he should have seen this coming.

It’s been eight weeks since they—since _it_  happened, and they’re in Fremont, Nebraska, because four weeks ago school got out for the summer and Sam walked into the apartment they were renting, dropped his book bag on the floor, and said “I want to leave.” Usually, Sam’s been scouring papers, locating a handful of potential hunts in the same part of the country, and they settle on a home base somewhere central. But this time, there’d been no planning, just quitting jobs and packing up and heading out because Sam said so and Dean wasn’t about to argue.

Dean managed to find a job pretty quickly, gas station attendant on the 2-to-11 shift, and Sam answered an ad he found on the bulletin board at the Alliance Grocery Mart to mow lawns in a neighborhood ten minutes’ walk from the weekly hotel they’re shacked up in until they decide how long they’re sticking around (knowing Sam the answer is probably not very, because his brother can only stand really small towns for a month or so before he gets bored out of his mind). The weather’s hot but not unbearable, so Dean tries to keep his worry about Sam out in the sun all day to a reasonable minimum, although he does spend a fortune on bottled water.

Dean also tries not to notice how tan Sam is getting from spending his mornings in the summer sun, but he can privately admit he’s having less success with that. His brother used to be this little pale, chubby kid; it’s not fair for him to be transforming into this golden, lean, lithe teenager in front of Dean’s eyes. Especially not now.

Dean lets himself into their room at the Countryside Inn, a dinner of gas station hot dogs (free because they’d been on the warmer too long) shoved in a bag under his arm. He keeps his movements quiet; Sam gets up with the sun to mow and Dean gets home late enough that he’s never sure if Sam will be awake. He sort of hates that they only see each other at night because of their schedules, but if he’s being honest with himself, it’s also sort of a relief. He can’t stop looking at his brother, can’t stop trying not to look. Can’t stop trying to figure out what to say to put things the way they were before he knew what the back of Sam’s teeth felt like against his tongue. Can’t really even let himself think about the whole situation, because every time it slips through the cracks of the wall he’s boarded it up behind, he feels so confused and guilty and aroused and over-his-head that his hands start shaking. Sam has reliably been the one to bring up this kind of shit for their entire lives, so until it inevitably happens, Dean just focuses on trying to breathe in the unsettled atmosphere between them.

The TV’s on, volume low and blue-gray light flickering over the dark room, over Sam’s face where he’s fallen asleep on the narrow couch, head on the armrest and legs curled up to his chest under a blanket. He’s not wearing a shirt, and the sight of it alone makes Dean’s stomach tighten with guilt that he even noticed it in the first place and something else that just makes the guilt worse. But Sam—Sam who watched Saturday morning cartoons in boxers so old Dean didn’t know how he still fit in them after multiple growth spurts, Sam who came in from soccer practice and left his jersey in a stinky, sweaty heap on the kitchen floor while he drank orange juice straight out of the carton, Sam who sparred with Dean in nothing but cutoff shorts—Sam's been wearing layers and layers every time he’s in the same room as Dean, even to bed. So Dean notices.

He toes off his boots, flicks on the kitchen light, and sets the food on the table before he moves over to the couch. He kneels down in front of his brother, cups a hand over the sleep-warmed bare skin of Sam’s shoulder, shakes gently.

“Sammy,” he says softly, watching the flicker of Sam’s eyes beneath their lids as his little brother blinks awake. Those hazel eyes, warm and muddied and open, take him in, a smile touching at the corners of Sam’s lips, before Sam seems to realize where he is and who he’s with and his eyes shutter over between one blink and the next, mouth slipping into a flat line.

It hurts.

“You want some dinner?” Dean asks, trying to breathe around the sharp pain in his chest that feels just like a cracked rib.

Sam blinks a few times, shifts like he’s gonna say yes and sit up, but then his shoulder sags even deeper into the couch and his eyes drop to the floor. “I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he whispers, and Dean wishes it were too quiet for him to hear.

“Do—,” Dean’s voice cracks and he clears his throat. “Do what?”

Sam does sit up now, looks down at where Dean’s kneeling on the floor but doesn’t meet his eyes. “I think I need to go…to go be by myself for a while.”

“ _No_!” Dean says, and it’s sharp enough that Sam’s gaze finally jerks up to his. Sam’s eyes are wet. “No,” Dean says again, trying to sound a little calmer. “No, Sam.”

Sam balls fists in his lap. “Dean, I just think—”

“I’m sorry!” Dean cuts in, and he thinks he must be panicking because they don’t so much say that to each other, not really, not like this. “Goddamnit, Sam, I’m so  _sorry_. I didn’t mean to—I will never,  _never_  do…do anything like that again, okay? I won’t, I promise.” Sam is watching him with wide wet eyes, head shaking so faintly he’s probably not even aware he’s doing it. “I’ll do—just, whatever you want, whatever needs to happen, you just tell me. Just don’t—you can’t just  _leave_.”

“You don’t get it, Dean!” Sam shouts back. “That’s not—you’re not the problem!  _I_  am. _Me_. I’m the one who…who started everything, I’m the one who can’t stop thinking about it.” Tears are slipping down his cheeks now, and he scrubs at them furiously, drawing his legs up to his chest. “I j-just need some time, okay? To stop—to-to—just to  _stop_.”

Dean’s hands are curled into fists, and he wants to grab Sam, shake some sense into him, but he’s afraid that touching will just spook Sam more. “Stop what, Sam?”

Sam buries his face in his knees and lets out a broken little sob. “Wanting you,” he whispers miserably. “W-wanting my b-brother.”

Dean falls back onto his haunches, heart stutter-stopping under the weight of fire that has slipped into his belly. Because while he’s been silently agonizing over this, over aching for his little brother’s touch, over forcing himself on Sam, Sam has been agonizing over the same thing. And yeah, so they’re both just  _beyond_  fucked up, but they’re fucked up  _together_  and that means they can figure it out.

“No, Sammy,” he says softly, and Sam tenses all over at the nickname, but Dean just sits up on his knees again, reaches out and puts his hands on Sam’s wrists where they’re clasped awkwardly around his shins, runs his palms up the lightly-haired skin of Sam’s arms and onto his shoulders, wraps his fingers around the back of Sam’s bowed neck. “Sammy, it’s okay. Me too, you know?” He feels the muscles of Sam’s neck shift as he raises his head, looks at Dean with red-rimmed eyes. “Me too,” Dean repeats. His thumbs rub soft circles on the hinge of Sam’s jaw. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Sam is still crying, shaking his head. “It’s not okay, Dean. It’s  _not_  okay.” Dean opens his mouth to protest, to explain, but then he’s got one-hundred-and-seventy pounds of gangly little brother sprawled across his thighs and Sam’s mouth is attacking his with a vengeance. The kiss tastes like water and salt and the staleness of short sleep and Dean can’t get enough, arms around Sam, hands crossed over the wings of his shoulder blades so he can pull his brother in closer even as Sam presses into him, uses his weight to push Dean all the way back onto the carpet, Dean ignoring the protest in his thighs as his jeans stretch and creak until he finally lifts his hips, gets his legs out from under himself, knees bent and feet on the floor. Sam is crawling up his body like he’s trying to climb  _into_  Dean’s mouth, and then he settles, thighs pressed on either side of Dean’s ribs, knees tucked up under his armpits, back curved like a triumphal arch down to where they meet again with lips and tongues and teeth. Dean can’t breathe with the weight on his lungs and the way Sam seems to be searching Dean’s tonsils like he thinks they’re haunted. He can’t breathe and he’s delirious and so, so turned on that he’s shuddering every time Sam tugs on his hair, and he doesn’t care, doesn’t care because this is  _perfect_ , this is  _everything_ , this is how he wants to  _die_.

Eventually, Sam draws back, kissing his way up over Dean’s cheek and temple and forehead before he sits up, torso looking impossibly long from Dean’s vantage point.

“This is so wrong,” Sam says faintly, thumb swiping at the spit on Dean’s bottom lip, trailing down to brush at the skin exposed by the open collar of Dean’s uniform shirt. Dean shudders again.

“I don’t care,” he replies, giving voice to the echo in his head, settling his hands on Sam’s skinny waist. He’s almost cross-eyed from looking up at Sam from this angle, but he’s a little afraid about what will happen if he tries to move and the moment is broken.

Sam looks down at him with such warmth that Dean does stop breathing entirely, just for a second. “We should go to bed,” Sam says, fingers winding their way up to scratch behind his ear now, like Sam just can’t decide which part of him to touch. “I’m exhausted; feels like I haven’t slept in a month.”

Dean nods and turns his head into the scratch. “I know what you mean,” he says, but he slides his hands up onto Sam’s back, tugs Sam in until Sam leans back down with a smirk and kisses him again, soft and lingering.

“Come on,” Sam says after a minute, getting to his feet and holding out a hand. Dean takes it, pulls himself up, presses into Sam’s space, gets their mouths together again. He feels giddy, light in a way he hasn’t since he was sixteen and his family was a little less broken. Sam’s only wearing a pair of sweatpants, and Dean can feel that his brother is half-hard, can feel his own erection achy and hot in constricting jeans. He tangles his fingers up into Sam’s hair, and Sam’s hips respond with a few aborted little thrusts against him, but then Sam pulls back, this time with a firm hand on Dean’s chest.

“I need a little time, okay?” he says quietly, eyes dark but expression serious.

Dean absently feels cold confusion coiling in his gut. “Okay.”

They sit at the table and eat cold chili dogs, one of Sam’s legs stretched across the space between them, foot in Dean’s lap. They brush their teeth, and Sam slips under the covers while Dean strips down to his boxers. Dean’s not sure what’s going to happen now, but as soon as his body hits the mattress, Sam is all over him, leg thrown over Dean’s, nose against his neck, mouth against his collarbone. Exactly where he’s always slept. Exactly where he belongs.

Dean presses a kiss to the top of Sam’s head, breathes in the scent of vanilla shampoo. “Goodnight, Sammy.”

He feels tapping against his ribs, Sam spelling out N-I-T-E in Morse code with the pads of his fingers, the way they used to on headboards when they were kids and Dad had them in separate beds, through the wall in apartments when they had separate rooms.

Dean falls asleep smiling.

***

Dean wakes up from a  _very_  good dream to the twinging, pulling pain of Sam’s mouth nibbling what’s got to be a spectacular hickey just below his collarbone. He’s foggy and he can feel drool crusted on the side of his face just as distinctly as he feels each suck of Sam’s lips jolt straight down to his morning-hard cock. He groans and rubs a hand over his face. Sam needs time, and Dean’s impulse control when he wakes up isn’t exactly stellar.

“Sam,” he says, voice gravelly with sleep. “You gotta stop it.”

Sam looks up at him with green eyes through the soft sweep of his eyelashes, swipes a tongue wetly over the blooming red bruise. He pushes up onto his hands, one palm flat and warm on Dean’s sternum, glances down at the obscene tent in Dean’s boxers. “Oh.” He looks apologetic, hums thoughtfully. “You should maybe shower.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Dean drags himself to sitting, gets his feet on the floor. Before he can stand, Sam is draped over his shoulders, hot skin of his chest pressed to Dean’s back.

He kisses lightly behind Dean’s ear. “Sorry,” he whispers, and Dean feels the damp heat of his breath. “I didn’t mean to….”

“S’okay, Sammy,” he says, pats at the hands slung around his neck before gently shrugging out of Sam’s hold. Great, his little brother is not just obnoxious, but a total tease, however unintentionally. “It’s really okay. You wanna go get us breakfast?” he asks as he stands.

“Sure,” Sam replies, and Dean shuffles into the bathroom.

He’s rinsing shampoo out his hair, trying to ignore the insistent throb of his cock until he’s sure Sam’s gone, when he hears Sam come in.

“I’m leaving now,” Sam says. Dean grunts in reply. There’s a pause. “I love you, Dean,” Sam says, and Dean winces when the reflexive squeeze of his hands pulls sharply at his hair.

It’s weird, because they always say it now when they’re separating, just in case. And while Dean’s not exactly into show-and-tell with his feelings, he’s gotten used to answering Sam. It’s just how they say goodbye.

But now? Now when who knows what’s going on between them? Dean’s already torn between the glow in his chest and the guilt in his stomach. The fact is, he’s been shoving these feelings so far out of sight for so long that he pretty much didn’t even know they existed until two months ago, had no reason not to keep ignoring them before Sam ended up in his lap last night. The fact is that Sam could sweep this rug out from under his feet at any moment, and Dean could only do what his brother asked. They both have to be willing players or there’s no game. Sure he might go utterly, irrevocably insane, now that he  _knows_ , but it’s still better than the alternative if Sam cuts him off.

Through the curtain, he sees the shadowy outline of Sam start to turn away, and “I love you, too” leaves his mouth before he can stop it. Which, in general, is the best way for Dean to do things. Operate by gut, leave the thinking for Sam.

“Bye,” Sam replies, a fondness in his tone that makes Dean feel a little stupid and melty inside, before his shadow disappears through the door and Dean’s left by himself.

Well, he’s still got little Dean, who is plenty present and demanding attention. Because Dean’s nineteen, thank you, and a little internal angst isn’t gonna put a dent in what dirty little brother dreams and hot water can create. He ignores it for now, conditions his hair, lathers up a washcloth with Ocean Breeze body wash (next time, Sam’s going to the first aid aisle and he’s shopping for toiletries, damn it), cleans himself very thoroughly, everywhere, just in case.

He uses Sam’s fancy teenage anti-acne stuff on his face, sticks it under the stream of water, holds his breath there while the suds slide down his chest and into the drain. Just when he’s starting to feel the tightness in his chest from the lack of oxygen, he grips a hand around his cock, rocks the curve of his palm up, squeezes around the head with the strong tendon between thumb and index finger. Does it again, again, until there are stars behind his eyelids and his lungs are screaming, finally leans forward so the spray is pelting down his back, forehead on one fist pressed to cool tile to hold himself upright as he heaves in huge breaths and speeds up the pace of his hand, takes his time on the build-up, lets himself imagine. Lets himself acknowledge for the first time that most of his conscious jerk off fantasies over the past who-knows-how-long weren’t just vague images—thin wrists, long legs, knees more knobble than anything else, tan skin, soft hair, fox eyes and fringe lashes—that no matter how feminine he’d convinced himself they all were abstractly, the reality was that it was nothing but Sam’s composite parts, broken down, made easy to digest. His perfect little Sammy, body lean, skin soft, all bones and suppleness, all his for the taking, for as long as he can hold on. And that’s just… _fuck_.

Sam on his knees, tears in his lashes and Dean’s come on his face; Sam draped across his back, those long fingers on his cock and pressing inside him where Dean’s only let one girl touch before; Sam in his arms, blankets tangled around their legs, snoring so lightly against his chest that it’s more of a vibration than a sound. Dean considers getting something as lube, but he’s too far gone now really, the smooth friction of gun callouses on his palm reminding his dick of the matching calloused skin on Sam’s. Sam’s mouth tastes like sugar; Dean wants to know what every inch of his skin tastes like, too. Wants to turn Sam inside out, wants to take him apart and put him back together, can’t stand that Sam’s not here now, that it’s not Sam’s hand on his body, just as casually possessive as it’s been every day of his life, since baby Sam came home and squeezed a fist tight around two of his fingers and Dean became his ever since.

“Sam, Sammy…please..ah,  _god_ , fuck… _fuck_ ,” and he’s coming, short and sharp, mostly down the drain, breathing still not caught up to him so that it’s all fuzzy kaleidoscope colors behind his eyelids. He falls back out of his muscle-locked position, twists to rest his back against the shower wall to his right, tingling fingertips grounded against the tile, sucking in air like a drowning man. There’s a part of his brain that wants to feel sick, trying to insistently prod at all the rest of him, but he’s too bone-deep satisfied to really give it any attention, shoves it way back and focuses on the kind of peace that comes from finally letting yourself accept reality.

After a minute, he blinks his eyes open, catches the edge of a shadow just vanishing out the door, knows even from the fleeting shape that it’s his brother, back with breakfast, licks his lips on a grin. Wonders if Sam’s staring at steaming coffee cups, uncomfortably hard. Serves him right for listening in, really.

Dean shuts off the water, grabs his towel off the rack and dries himself perfunctorily before wrapping it around his waist, empty stomach protesting all his morning activities without any sustenance. Sam’s sitting across the room when Dean comes out, bagel in front of him, eyes locked on Dean’s chest, legs twitching under the table. All Dean has to do is raise an eyebrow and Sam’s blushing pink, and Dean keeps the laughter in his chest while he digs through his duffel, pulls out clean boxers and undershirt. It’s tempting to drop the towel, but there’s teasing Sam and then pushing too hard when Sam’s asked him to be patient.

Dressed enough to eat, he pulls the other rickety dining chair closer to his brother before dropping into it. “Hey,” he says, and Sam nods. “Thanks for breakfast.” And Sam just nods again, eyes on his food. “It’s okay, you know.” Sam’s gaze jumps to his face. “In fact,” Dean continues, leaning forward conspiratorially, and Sam does, too, drawn in like they’re magnets, “to be honest, I kind of like it.”

“Yeah?” Sam asks, cheeks warm and voice quiet.

“Yeah,” Dean answers, runs a finger behind Sam’s ear, kisses the corner of Sam’s mouth. When he tries to pull back, Sam’s hand closes on his wrist, pulls him back in. Sam tastes like coffee and cream cheese, fingers rubbing at the short hairs on the back of Dean’s neck. It’s lazy like morning, and Dean could stay here all day, just like this, but he knows based on how sunny it is outside that Sam’s already late getting started for the day, so he draws back eventually. “Come on, kiddo, eat up. I’ll drive you to your first house.”

“Not a kid,” Sam says, but he picks his breakfast back up.

“Always a kid to me, Sammy,” Dean responds, takes a sip of coffee made just how he likes it.

Eyes drag down and over Dean in a way that makes his skin spark like it’s waking up from falling asleep. “We’ll see,” Sam counters smoothly, and settles into his bagel.

 

******

 

It’s October, air picking up a little bite in the early Illinois mornings before settling into something cool but comfortable in the day time, which Dean appreciates because he’s working on a road crew that operates in the time between morning and evening rush hours. He sort of hates living so close to Chicago, but Sam’d wanted to go to “actually good” schools for his senior year, and since Dean figured it was sort of Sam’s last chance to really enjoy the nerdly things in life, he’d acquiesced. He also sort of secretly hopes that they can just finish out the whole year here, just because he knows how happy it would make his little brother. Dean’s really only got two goals in life: save people (while avenging Mom) and make Sam smile.

Of course, Dean sort of feels like he’s cheating with that second one now; it used to be a lot bigger challenge to tease out those dimples before he’d started fucking his brother. Not that they’re fucking, per se. Sam is still just sixteen and totally inexperienced as far as Dean knows (and Dean figures he knows pretty far, is pretty sure there’s not a secret Sam could keep from him even if he tried at this point). And while nobody can rev his engine quite like Sam does, with his soft skin and his bony ankles and the little smile he likes to fit right against Dean’s mouth in the morning before he crawls out of bed, like he doesn’t believe he gets to wake up and kiss Dean every day, when Sam looks at him with liquid eyes and whispers into his ear about how things that are really important take time, Dean knows he’d be willing to wait forever if it means he gets to keep his hollow-boned boy in his arms.

Plus he maybe actually likes taking it slow. Dean’s been pretty much zero to sixty when it comes to sex since the first time he rounded the bases, but he’s starting to appreciate the benefits of the build-up. Like how it doesn’t matter that he’s already seen Sam naked a handful of times since Sam hit puberty, that he’s definitely had Sam sprawled all over him in nothing but his underwear, skin-warm and sleep-sticky and touching everywhere, because he has yet to see Sam naked when he’s flushed down every inch of his skin and so willing and wanton underneath Dean’s hands, eyes bright, mouth kiss-red and spit-chapped, muscles tight, fingers scrabbling. Like how it doesn’t matter that Sam has said his name a thousand thousand times, has screamed it in terror and yelled it in frustration and whispered it with fondness, because hearing it dripped dirty wet in his ear as Sam groans  _Dean, wanna see you touch yourself, show me how you do it_ , hearing it bitten out in a sort of pained wonder when Dean brands his love into the skin of Sam’s chest and hips and thighs with his teeth, up and up as close as he can get to Sam’s cock before Sam shoves him away and finishes himself off in the bathroom, door open so Dean can hear little choking breaths and the sandpaper hiss of his name when Sam comes. Like how it doesn’t matter that he’s held Sam close and tight all his life, because it’s just not the same as Sam pressing soft little kisses all over his forehead and cheeks and jaw and neck while he grinds that fantastic little ass down into Dean’s lap until Dean gets off so hard in his jeans that his dick is sore from a lot more than friction burn.

Goddamnit if Sam isn’t fucking perfect. Which Dean has always known, but now he knows it better.

He does wonder, sometimes, when he can’t force himself not to, whether Sam is holding back because secretly, he feels guilty about them being  _them_. Because Dean still remembers when they kissed, the second time but the first time that mattered, remembers how Sam had tasted like sadness, had said  _this is so wrong_  even as he touched Dean like inevitability. Because in the very dark moments, when memories of Dad press in so strong Dean can’t push them back away, when he sees whole, happy, pretty families out for dinner, Dean considers the things he’s done to his little brother and tastes bile. What would Dad have said, if he had known? What would Dad have done to him, if he’d seen the way Dean lays hands on his baby brother and rubs love and sin into his skin?

But Sam—Sam knows Dean like he knows Latin (inside out and backwards and broken up into little pieces to be mashed up together in whatever order was necessary), and he always seems to know when Dean’s mind heads in that direction, because Dean’s suddenly pressed back against the kitchen counter by his little brother, all evened up to Dean in height now (damn it), Sam’s hands on his waist and socked feet rubbing at his calves and Sam’s mouth whispering  _I love you, big brother_ , right into the seam of his frown until Dean can’t think anything but  _mine_  and then _mine, mine, always mine_.

And that’s what it comes down to anyway. They belong to each other, completely, ultimately and not a damn thing is ever gonna change that.

 

******

 

“Wanna go to the house for Christmas break?” Sam asks him one night, head pillowed in Dean’s lap, eyes skimming the lines of  _A Room with a View_  while snow falls outside the window and Bears highlights play on the TV. That’s what they’ve been calling it, ‘the’ house, because it’s not ‘Bobby’s’ house anymore but it’s not really ‘their’ house either. Like it’s just no one’s in particular. They’ve been back a handful of times since their first trip, and somewhere around visit four, Dean realized they’d actually started to make real progress, drapes pulled open so the sun could burn out the mildew, books organized onto shelves and into rooms like a lending library catalogued according to Sam’s very own Dewey decimal system for the occult. The artifacts have been harder to sort, since they have no idea what most of them do, so most are still lying untouched, in case moving them is dangerous, or else sprawled on folding tables they’d set up in the panic room they’d discovered in the basement (trust Bobby to have one) like a very creepy and possibly deadly garage sale. Sam insists that once the books are organized, they can start figuring out what to do about everything else, because they’ll finally have a place to look for answers. Dean insists Sam should calm down the geek mode or he’ll never get laid.

That joke is totally funnier now that Dean’s the one doing the laying.

“Okay,” Dean agrees, thumb sweeping idly back and forth over the ridge of Sam’s collarbone, and then sits up a little straighter, jostling his brother. “Dude, we can totally go by that amazing Chinese place in Missouri on the way back!”

“Dude,” Sam mocks, and Dean sticks his tongue out. “Missouri is  _not_  on the way back.”

“So we’ll detour. Come on, Sammy,” he wheedles, “it’s Christmas!”

Sam snorts a little laugh. “Okay, okay. Just to make you happy.” He’s shifted onto his back now, gazing up at Dean, and Dean’s got his hand splayed over the warmth of Sam’s chest, feeling the grooves of bone under his skin, light from the TV tipping his eyelashes silver.

“You’re beautiful, you know,” Dean murmurs, even though he meant to keep that particular thought in his own head. He grinds his teeth a little, knowing he’s just totally opened himself wide for teasing, but Sam just looks away, somewhere in the neighborhood of Dean’s belly button.

“Don’t tease me,” Sam says softly, and Dean hears the sincerity, the uncertainty in his voice.

“Hey,” he says, voice firm, shaking Sam a little by the shoulder. “What do you mean?”

Sam closes his eyes. “I mean I’m not…I know I’m not…I know I don’t look like you, okay?”

“Yeah, and?”

“And I’m like…awkward and stuff. Can we not talk about this?”

“I don’t know, can you look at me?” Sam’s eyes flutter open reluctantly, little line creased into the space between them. “I know you’re the smart one in the family, Sammy,” Sam wrinkles his nose at the words, but Dean keeps talking, “but you’re kind of an idiot about some things. Like how absolutely handsome you are.”

“Shut up,” Sam says, and Dean can see the tinge of a blush already spreading on his cheekbones. Teenaged Sam drives him crazy sometimes, but he sure as shit is gonna miss him when Sam grows up.

“Like how totally  _fuckable_  you are.”

“Dean!”

“Like your eyes,” Dean says, dragging his thumb over the arch of Sam’s eyebrow, down and around into the hollow underneath, “and this cute little nose,” two fingers down the ridge of it, tapping lightly on the tip before bouncing down to, “and  _god_ , Sammy, your fucking  _mouth_ , want it all over me,” brush the pink curve of his lips, corners reluctantly curling into a smile now, and Sam parts his lips, flicks at Dean’s fingers with his tongue, “always driving me  _crazy_ , baby, drive me wild,” as Dean smears the line of Sam’s spit over the ridge of his jaw, down the line of his neck to the dip between his collarbones, just peeking over the top of his wash-faded t-shirt.

“Dean,” Sam says, whimpers really, breathy and pretty in that way that makes Dean’s dick jump in his pants, and he reaches down with one hand to the hem of Sam’s shirt, tugs it up to expose the faint line of hair that’s just starting to really come in on the span of his lower stomach, leading down to the waistband of his basketball shorts. Sam gets with the picture, sits up and shifts his butt back into Dean’s lap, lets Dean pull the shirt over his head, toss it on the floor, put his hands on the lean line of Sam’s waist.

“Want you all the time,” Dean continues, leaning up and in to taste the hinge of Sam’s jaw, nip at the vulnerable spot behind his ear. “Wanna put my hands all over you,” squeezing the muscles under his hands, kissing down Sam’s throat now, tonguelipsteeth, and Sam’s writhing for it, looping his arms around Dean’s neck to pull him closer. “Wanna mark you up where everybody can see it so they know you’re all mine,” and that gets a moan from his brother, head tipped back to give Dean better access, lips gasping open. “Yeah, you want that, huh?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Sam whispers, finishes it off with a hurt, pleased little sound as Dean licks over the flat of his nipple, teases it with the tip of his tongue until it perks up to attention. “Dean,  _ah_ ,” and Dean rubs his thumb over the other in firm little circles as it wakes up, too.

“So goddamn gorgeous,” he growls into the goose bumped flesh of Sam’s chest, feels the way Sam shudders lightly under his hands.

“Shut up,” Sam gasps out, cups Dean’s jaw in long-fingered hands, no baby fat chubbiness left there at all anymore, pulls Dean’s mouth away from his chest and up to meet his own. Sam’s got this thing for dropping little closed-mouth kisses all over Dean’s lips, but he doesn’t bother with it now, slicks his tongue right into the gap Dean’s using to breathe, kissing viciously, and Dean gives it all right back, pressing himself as close as he can get in this position until he gets sick of it, slides his way out from underneath Sam, wraps around until Sam’s on his back with Dean straddled over him, one knee on the couch and one foot on the floor, Sam’s hands sliding under Dean’s shirt to push it up over his shoulders and off.

Dean sits back, hard line of Sam’s cock pressing into the meat of his ass, enjoys the view. It seems like Sam’s body is changing every day, so quickly Dean doesn’t even really see it unless he takes the time to look closely. He’s getting so thin now from the growth spurts he never eats enough to keep up with, lean muscle under smooth skin from the work outs he forces Dean to perform, too. His tummy is so flat it’s just a little concave when he’s on his back like this.

Dean leans in close, buries his hands in the tangle of Sam’s hair. “Gonna make you understand one day,” he promises, mouths close, space between them humid so that when Dean leans in to keep Sam from protesting, their lips stick and drag. He brushes his mouth back and forth, back and forth, noses bumping each time, until Sam’s eyelashes are fluttering and Dean can feel the press of his chest as he breathes, can feel the way Sam’s muscles start to shiver under his skin like he doesn’t want to stop what Dean’s doing but he’s barely controlling himself. Finally, he breaks, catches Dean’s lip between his teeth the next time Dean makes contact, bites down hard enough to make Dean hiss. Those long fingers are fumbling in the narrow space between their bodies to pop the button on Dean’s jeans, tug down the zipper, both hands shoving under the waistband of Dean’s boxers to grab at his cock.

“Shit, Sam. Jesus,” Dean bites out, drops his forehead against Sam’s jaw so he can look down to where Sam’s shifting his hands around to Dean’s hips, thumbs hooked back on the outside of Dean’s pants and pushing down so that Dean’s ass is exposed to the cool air.

“Off,” Sam demands, fingernails dragging sharp over the skin at the top of Dean’s thigh. Dean pulls away from him, gets both feet on the floor to wriggle his jeans and underwear the rest of the way over his hips, down to the floor. He takes a second to appreciate Sam on the couch, plush lips and flushed skin, legs loose and open and just waiting for Dean to slip back between them, hands toying idly with the drawstring on his pants. Sam’s watching him just as intently, always does when Dean gets naked for him, eyes half-lidded and three-quarters dark as he drags his gaze, heavy as a touch, up one side of Dean and down the other.

“ _You’re_  beautiful,” Sam says, grumpy little brother tone strong in his voice, but then he ducks his head down and before Dean can react, he’s fisting his hands in the loose fabric over his thighs and tugging his shorts down and Dean’s heart just stutter-stops in his chest because  _he’s not wearing anything underneath_. Sam is  _completely naked_  and Dean can fucking  _see it_.

“Fuck, Sammy,” he says, tone all reverent and no control over his brain to rein it in. Sam’s cock is just as pretty as the rest of him, longer than it is thick, dusky pink flushing to red at the tip and beading up with precome, all nested up in dark hair that’s curly, a little less sparse here than on Sam’s chest. Dean licks his lips, swallows nothing from his dry mouth. “Can I—?” he asks, reaching out, fingers hovering over the thin skin that covers the bend between Sam’s torso and thigh. Sam nods, eyes on Dean’s fingers, and he shudders hard when Dean’s fingers brush carefully over the skin there. It’s warm and so, so soft and he gets down on his knees, follows his fingers with the edge of his teeth, and then traces the little red line left behind with his tongue, closing his mouth over a patch of that delicate skin, so close to Sam’s cock that he can  _smell_  it, all musk and salt and teenage boy, licking and sucking and massaging at the trapped patch of his skin with his teeth until Sam’s groaning, one hand over his face and the other on the top of Dean’s head, not tugging or pushing but just rubbing Dean’s hair between his fingers. Dean finally lets him go, licking over and over the deep, purpling bruise there, outlined finely in the indentations of Dean’s teeth.

“Taste so good here, Sammy,” he murmurs right against his torso, turns his head to look at his brother, presses his cheek to Sam’s pelvis so he can feel the heat of him, the catch of his pubic hair against Dean’s stubble. “Wanna—can I blow you?”

Sam lifts up the hand over his eyes, looks down at Dean seriously. “Have you, before?”

Dean shakes his head where it’s resting. “No. But I want to. Wanna try.”

Sam bites his lip, brushes his fingers over the shell of Dean’s ear, drags a thumb down and across Dean’s mouth. “Okay,” he says, and the look in his eyes is all love and no hesitation.

“Okay,” Dean echoes, burrows his head a little into Sam’s warmth and then sits up, frames Sam’s cock with his hands. He may have never done this but he’s had it done _to_  him, so he’s got a vague idea of where to start. “I’ll just—,” and he leans in, swipes his tongue over the head and then pulls a little away, closes his mouth and swallows to get the taste before he moves back in. Sam’s cock bobs away as he licks at it, so he moves a hand up loose around the base to stabilize it and goes in again, licks up the sides and all around the head, pausing in between tastes to work more spit up onto his tongue. It’s sort of weird how Sam’s cock seems to absorb so much of his spit before he can actually work it up to being slick and wet under his mouth, so he takes his time, planting open-mouthed kisses all down the shaft and swirling licks just under the head that he’s probably way too enthusiastic about but whatever.

“Stop teasing,” Sam whines, and Dean grins at him, let’s Sam’s cock rest on his cheek.

“So impatient, Sammy,” he admonishes, but then he leans in, fits his lips just around the head, tongues over the swell of it in his mouth and gives a little suck.

“Oh god,” Sam moans, and Dean does it a few more times. “Dean…oh god…fuck, ah—ah,  _fuck_.” Sam’s hand is on his own thigh now, curled into a white-knuckled fist like it wants to be on the back of Dean’s head, and it gives Dean the confidence to take him a little deeper, slide Sam back further onto his tongue before backing off. He does his best to work up a steady rhythm, taking Sam deeper into his mouth, as deep as he’s comfortable with, before pulling back until he feels the ridge of the head against the back of his lips, again and again, tongue wrapping this way and that around the flesh in his mouth as he tries to make it good, until Sam is a shaking little mess on the couch cushions, thighs going from tensing and flexing under his hands to taught and shivery like a livewire, one hand on his shoulder now, half-moon dig of fingernails sharp and burning where Sam’s holding on.

It’s odd the way Sam’s cock is asymmetrical in his mouth, flare of the head pressed up to Dean’s right cheek and comparatively flat on the other side, and the couch is a little high so that even though Dean’s leaning up over Sam and angling Sam’s cock towards himself with his hand, it still bumps against the roof of his mouth every time before sliding in deeper. Dean understands with sudden clarity why chicks always wanted to be between his legs when they did this to him. He’s not any good at this, he’s not afraid to admit, but Sam is sixteen so not-very-good still translates to I’m-gonna-blow-right-the-fuck-now, and the hand on his shoulder goes from gripping to shoving as Sam gasps out, “Dean, gonna—I’m gonna—” and Dean backs up, replaces his mouth with the steady pump of his fist, wet suck of spit and precome slicking the way, making it loose and easy in Dean’s hand like they’re using lube, and Dean’s leaning up and in to appreciate the flush of Sam’s skin and the disbelieving width of his eyes so the first few spurts of Sam’s come catch him, startlingly hot, on the chin, before the rest of it lands on the clench of Sam’s abdomen or leaks out to make his fist even wetter and messier than before.

“Holy shit,” Sam says weakly, gasping for air like he just rope-pulled a freight train, eyes still caught on Dean’s face like he thinks if he blinks, he’ll wake up and this will all be a dream.

“You got come on my face,” Dean replies, wiping at his chin with the back of his hand, which isn’t all that effective since there’s a mess of sweat and come and spit all over it, and Sam chuffs something that might be a little laugh under the panting.

“Better than in your mouth?” Sam offers, and Dean flicks him sharply above the knee. “Get up here,” he demands, patting limply at his own chest, so Dean stands with a pop in his knees and straddles himself over the sated sprawl of Sam’s limbs on the couch. Sam looks debauched—fucked out and so pretty it hurts.

“So fucking sexy, Sammy,” Dean growls, take his own cock in his messy fist and starts pumping, way too on edge from Sam’s little show to take it easy. Sam watches him for a long moment, eyes dark and heavy everywhere they rest, searing imprints left behind on Dean’s skin, and Dean’s hips buck furiously when Sam’s hand closes over his, fingers pressing in to slot between Dean’s and get a firm grip. “Oh fuck, fuck me,” Dean whispers, letting his own hand fall away and just  _feeling_  it, the heat and the friction of Sam touching him,  _oh god_ , letting his body fall forward so his forehead is resting right up against Sam’s and Sam’s hand has to struggle a little awkwardly in the space between them.

“You can return the favor, you know,” Sam says, wet heat of his breath painted right onto Dean’s mouth, and Dean doesn’t know, has no idea what Sam means until his little brother groans out, “You can come on my face,” and shit, _shit_ , what kind of porn has his little brother been watching? Dean pulls back and somehow manages to slide himself forward, one hand planted hard on Sam’s chest to hold himself up in a way that has to be hurting but Sam doesn’t even flinch, cock right at the level of Sam’s chin, little moans coming out of Dean’s throat uncontrollably, like hiccups, and then Sam wraps his free hand around Dean’s hip, digs his fingers into Dean’s ass, barks out “Come on my fucking face, Dean,  _do it_ ,” and Dean does, he  _does_ , he comes, marks up all that pretty, teenage boy skin, gets it on Sam’s eyelashes and in his bangs and the last few shots dribble down onto his chest to pool in his collarbones and Dean is very, very probably dead and in heaven.

He’s vaguely aware of the sensation of Sam’s letting go of his too-sensitive, too-sticky dick, the shudder it produces all the way down to his toes, and now that Sam’s hand is out of the way, wiping Dean out of his eyes so he can carefully open them, Dean collapses, squishes the mess of Sam-come and Dean-come on their chests between them and it’s  _completely_  disgusting and he’s going to get up and get them both in the shower because body fluids,  _gross_ , just whenever it is that he can actually control his limbs again.

“You got jizz on the throw pillow,” Sam comments after a minute, hands tripping lightly up and down the bumps of Dean’s spine.

“What the fuck is a throw pillow?” Dean counters, and he bites at the bony jut of Sam’s shoulder, just for good measure.

 

******

_2000_

******

 

Dean’s digging through the drawer of Sam’s shirts, getting Sam’s duffle packed for their spring break hunting trip, when he feels glossy paper. He snickers to himself, because this is priceless, his little brother stashing porn mags when Dean knows very well that Sam doesn’t waste much time solo with his hand anymore, not now that he’s got Dean’s instead. Sam is so old in some ways that Dean forgets he’s still a teenage boy at heart, just a few months shy of high school graduation.

He shoves the shirts to the side so he can dig out his prize. Maybe he’ll spread them out on the kitchen table so Sam sees them the minute he gets home, nowhere to run.

Only when he catches a glimpse of what’s hiding at the bottom, his fingertips go numb.

He tugs the drawer completely out of the dresser, yanking hard when it catches before sliding free, and upends the whole thing onto the mattress, stripped bare because Dean’s washing the sheets. A little pile of brochures falls out on top of the clothes, slippery paper sliding and spilling over the pile so they’re fanned out and mostly upside-down. Still, he doesn’t need to see them all from the front to know what they are.

Brochures. For colleges. College brochures. Probably a dozen of them. College brochures at the bottom of Sam’s drawer. Like a secret. Like something Sam needed to hide.

He reaches out with a hand that’s steady because he’s too well-trained for it to shake, plucks one off the top of the pile.  _Stanford University_. On the front, there’s a picture of a covered, colonnaded walkway under the bright California sun. He can tell when he opens it that it’s been folded and unfolded more than once.

When Sam comes home, Dean’s sitting on the uncovered mattress, face in his hands, Stanford brochure scattered among the others on the threadbare carpet where they’d landed when Dean had swept the whole mess onto the floor. One of his hands is aching from hitting the wall, but the throb in his knuckles is numbing, grounding, and he welcomes the distraction.

“So guess what?” Sam’s saying as he comes down the hall, seeking Dean out after he hadn’t been waiting in the living room. “I brought home my soccer unif—Dean?” He’s in the doorway now, and there’s a taut silence while he takes in the scene before him. Dean doesn’t even have to see his face to know the exact series of emotions it’s running through—worry, then shock, dismay, guilt, maybe resignation. “Shit,” his little brother whispers. There’s another hot flare of anger in Dean’s chest at the word, but it’s stifled so quickly by the overwhelming ache behind his sternum that he doesn’t even react.

After a long pause, he hears the  _brushbrush_  of denim moving toward him, and then the mattress dips down as Sam settles onto it to his right. He sees Sam’s legs move up off the floor through the cracks in his fingers, knows Sam is curling himself up, making himself as small as possible because that’s what Sam does when he’s scared or upset or feeling attacked.

“I know you’re mad,” Sam starts quietly, and Dean snorts derisively into the hollow of his palms. Mad? He passed mad thirty minutes ago before it got all swallowed up with the sharp, black thing under his ribs.

Sam sighs. “I know. But it’s not what it looks like.”

And that stokes the anger up, presses it right under his skin. He drops his hands away from his face, blinks incredulously at Sam with dry, sore eyes. “ _Not what it looks like_? When the fuck were you gonna tell me, Sam?”

“Tell you what?” Sam asks, and his face is open and honest and so utterly confused that Dean’s fists curl up with the urge to lash out again.

“About  _any_  of this? About the fact that you’re  _leaving_?”

Sam’s eyes go wide, startled like a deer. “Dean, I’m not—”

“God, don’t  _lie_  to me,” he cuts in. Sam tries to talk, but Dean’s off now, yelling over him. “Don’t fucking lie to me, not after—not after—I’ve given you  _everything_ , Sam. _Everything._  I don’t have anything left. What else am I supposed to  _do_?” His voice breaks at the end and there’s pressure building heavy behind his eyes and he hates himself, hates himself for being so goddamn weak and so goddamn blind.

Sam’s up on his knees now, and he manages to get a grip on one of Dean’s wrists, twisting it sharp enough to send a spark of pain up Dean’s arm that surprises him enough to shut him up. “ _Listen_  to me.” Sam’s voice is all command, and it reminds Dean so much of Dad that his spine almost straightens on reflex, even after three years. Sam lets his arm go, puts his hands on either side of Dean’s face, fingers digging in just below Dean’s temples, thumbs pressing under his jaw.

“I’m not leaving, Dean. Do you hear me? I’m  _not_  leaving.” He stares at Dean, right into his eyes for a long minute, and Dean’s looking for the lie but it’s not there.

“Then why—?” he croaks out, but Sam cuts him off.

“Last semester, the guidance counselor, she gave them to me. Because of my grades. She’d sent off for them and she gave them to me. I didn’t even ask for them. I didn’t even apply anywhere. Okay?”

“But then why did you keep them?” Dean presses. “Why would you  _hide_  them from me?” Relief is creeping over him, cool and soothing, but he still needs to know.

Sam lets his hands fall away, collapses down onto his butt, leans back against the headboard. “It’s just—I don’t know,” he mumbles, looking awkward. “It was sort of nice to think about? I mean, I know it’s not my life, not  _our_  life, but sometimes, it was nice to just…imagine. Me and you, settled down in some apartment somewhere, not…not risking our lives all the time. Nothing to be afraid of.” He’s fidgeting his hands in the sprawl of his legs.

“There’s always gonna be something be afraid of,” Dean says, tries to make it sound like an apology. There’s a reason they still do this, a reason they still risk their lives to be the men their Dad made them. He knows that Sam’s not happy with it, but hunting is part of them, part of their blood. Not something he can just give up.

Sam looks up at him with a little twist to his mouth. “I know. And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to think…well, exactly what you thought, I guess.”

Dean nods. “Okay,” he says because he knows Sam needs to know that he believes him, looks back down at his hands, thumbing over the bruising on his knuckles.

It’s quiet for a long moment, and then Sam says, “Dean?” and his tone is soft, cautious enough to make Dean look up, see the hand Sam is reaching out to him. He takes it, lets Sam draw him onto the bed, into the vee of Sam’s legs. Sam places a light kiss on each swollen knuckle, flips Dean’s hand over, presses a kiss into the palm, too, before he reels Dean in closer. Dean moves in willingly, wants the kiss, wants to release the tension that’s still holding the weight of emptiness in his insides, but Sam stops him when they’re still a few inches apart.

“I will  _never_  leave you, Dean,” he says solemnly, and Dean closes the distance between them, catches Sam’s mouth in a kiss that’s too deep, too greedy for the moment but he can’t help it. He  _needs_ , and Sam is more than willing to give, letting Dean drag him down the mattress, spread out over top of him, knees spread around Sam’s thighs, thumb at the corner of Sam’s mouth so that he can feel the catchstickdrag of their lips against each other, the rough flash of Sam’s tongue. Sam tastes like cherry licorice and belonging, and he lets himself get a little lost in it, in the catch of their taste buds and the smack of their spit and the softness of Sam’s skin under his teeth as he bites his way down Sam’s throat.

“Dean,” Sam whines, and it’s just demanding enough to get his attention, drag him away from the tendons of Sam’s neck to catch Sam’s pupil-dark eyes. “I want you,” he says, and Dean grins down at him, predatory.

“I know, baby boy. Gonna give you everything,” he promises, grinding his dick down against the firm length of Sam in his jeans.

But Sam’s shaking his head, says, “No, I want you…inside. Wanna have sex with you,” and Dean barely manages to keep himself hovering over his brother because every part of him seems to flush hot and trembling all at once.

“Are you—are you sure? Like really sure?” he asks. “You don’t have to do this just because—”

“That’s not why,” Sam assures him, thighs splaying wider and pressing firm into Dean’s legs, hands running up under Dean’s shirt, over the lines of muscle around his ribcage. “I love you, wanna give you everything, too. ‘m tired of waiting.” He gives a nervous little grin and Dean loves him so much that it’s stupid.

“Love you, too. Love you so much, Sammy,” he responds, and then he kisses his brother again before he can do something disgusting like cry. “Gonna take care of you,” he promises.

And he does.

 

******

 

Sam graduates high school in an ugly teal polyester robe that’s several inches shorter on him than then it should be, nice pair of khakis and button down shirt and even a new tie that Dean bought him for the occasion underneath. Sam graduates with honors, and Dean feels a little wistful thinking that if their lives weren’t their lives, Sam would probably be a valedictorian at seventeen with a full scholarship to the college of his choosing, instead of a transient student who probably ruined some other kid’s life by slipping into the top five percent when they’d moved into town in September.

Sam walks across the stage, tall and confident and stunning, shakes hands with the principal, poses for a picture with his diploma in hand.

Dean absolutely does not cry. He just accepts the tissue from the woman next to him to be polite, is all.

They pack up their apartment the next day, and Dean takes Sam on a surprise trip to Yellowstone, even rents some fancy ass camping gear because, after all, they’re celebrating. He makes a lot of great jokes about Old Faithful that Sam calls tasteless and lets Sam drag their sleeping bags out into a clearing a quarter mile from any other campers, where Dean lays him out and licks him open and Sam rides him slow in the moonlight, head crowned by a hundred thousand stars.

They stay for a week, then pack that up, too, and it only hits Dean then for the very first time, there’s nothing in front of them but the open road. He’s got his baby, and the job, and his boy tucked up close under his arm, so he figures he’s got just about everything.

But he can’t help remembering Sam’s face, skin golden and eyes bright in the flickering light of the bonfire, when Dean had asked, “So, high school graduate, huh? Are you happy?” and Sam had turned his face away, looked right into the fire before he’d replied, “Of course.”

 

******

_2001_

******

 

Dean wakes up to sunshine and the smell of coffee. He blinks dry eyes, stretches, rolls onto his side. Sam is sitting at the room’s little table in front of his laptop, feet propped in a patch of sunlight on the second chair. He’s got sweat pants on and rolled up to his ankles, and Dean blearily studies the deceptively fragile-looking bones of his foot until it lifts up and waggles a few times in front of him. He looks up.

Sam sips his coffee and smirks. “Hey, big brother.”

Dean shudders lightly and smacks the covers in Sam’s direction. “Stop it. It’s too early for that.”

Sam’s grin only widens, but he gets up and shuffles over to the coffee maker, and Dean watches the way his muscles move under the thinness of his skin as he pours coffee into a paper cup and carries it over. He sits down on the edge of the bed as Dean props himself up against the headboard and reaches out, makes a little grabby motion with his fingers. Sam laughs.

“You have a problem,” he says, passing over the cup.

Dean shrugs. “There are worse addictions.”

Sam hums back non-committally, but his eyes wander briefly to where Dean’s cock is covered up by the sheet. Dean thinks about reaching out, making good on the time they have before they’ve got to check out of the room, but then Sam’s looking back at his face, expression serious and eyes remarkably flat, and Dean knows what he’s going to say before he says it.

“I think I found something,” Sam starts, and Dean feels the completely even tone of Sam’s voice like it’s pressure on his chest. He hates this as much as he loves it, and he almost wishes Sam would just stop looking one day just as much as he wishes hunting didn’t make Sam retreat so far behind his walls that even Dean can’t find him anymore.

“Okay.”

“Three people have turned up dead in Minneapolis in the few months. Or well…parts of three people, anyway.”

“Parts?” Dean asks, the coffee burning a little sickly in his stomach. He’s seen and heard about a lot of things, but people parts is a bit much to handle after just waking up.

“Parts,” Sam confirms, his nose squidging up way that makes Dean want to kiss it and then deadarm himself for thinking about the way Sam’s nose wrinkles.

“So why is this about us?” Dean asks, setting the coffee to the side for now. Maybe he can stomach it with a few egg McMuffins. “And not crazy, parts-leaving psychos?”

Sam gets off the bed and grabs the newspaper, tossing it over to Dean. “It says they’re covered in chew marks. The cops are saying it’s bears.”

“Bears? In the middle of Minneapolis?” Dean snorts.

“That’s what I was thinking. So we should check it out.” His tone is all neutral finality, and it makes Dean want to cringe.

“Okay,” Dean says. “Minneapolis it is.” He leans over and looks at the clock on the night stand. 9:18 AM. He climbs out of bed, holds the sheet around his waist. “You know,” he continues, keeping his voice light as he crosses to the window, “check out isn’t until eleven.” He pulls the blinds, lets the sheet fall to the threadbare carpet.

Sam’s expression barely changes. “We should hit the road,” he says, eyes on the floor and flats of his fingernails brushing back and forth across his chin. Which, point, but right now Dean’s more concerned about getting one more smile out of Sam before it disappears for however many days it takes them to find and hunt this monster, or figure out that it’s not one.

“Well then,” Dean offers, dropping to his knees in the space between Sam’s thighs, “we better be quick.”

***

It’s after nine when Dean lets himself into the motel room, breathing a sigh of relief when he sees that Sam’s already made it back. Sam’s still too young and pretty to pass for law enforcement, so he always ends up doing the more unsavory jobs while Dean goes to collect police reports and make copies. In this case it was sweet-talking his way into city planning to see blueprints for the county morgue because Sam had wanted an up-close-and-personal view of the teeth marks for himself and wasn’t about to be satisfied with the photos Dean would obtain with the coroner’s report. It’s not like Dean is exactly happy with Sam planning his own little B&E, but telling Sam to stay put is just about the most ineffective method of dealing with his little brother imaginable, and Dean’s gotten pretty good at reminding himself that Sam’s not an idiot, knows how to get himself out of trouble, knows not to get into it in the first place.

Dean drops a stack of brown folders on the table next to a cooling pizza, takes off his coat and tosses it over the back of a chair. “So, bears?” he asks, grabbing himself a slice and sitting down on the end of the closest bed as Sam finishes pinning up a map of Minneapolis over a tacky print of the city skyline.

“Definitely not bears,” Sam replies, stepping back to look at the map. “Whatever it is has got to have a whole mouthful of little teeth, like needles. The bones were all scratched up and the flesh was just….” He trails off and twists his shoulders uncomfortably. He looks over at Dean, and his eyes have that glassed over sheen that Dean knows means he was on the edge of panic every minute Dean was gone.  It happens sometimes in the early stages of a case, when they have no idea what they’re hunting and therefore no way to protect themselves from it. “What did you find out?”

“Well,” Dean says around a mouthful of pizza, “according to the police reports, all of our victims went missing at night, when they were supposed to be heading home. Only none of them made it. The first one, Amy Simon, she was a waitress at a bar. Called her boyfriend right before she left around 2:30 in the morning, never made it to her car parked a few blocks down the street. Second guy, John Loesch, he was at a party with his friends. Told them he was walking home, but his roommate said he never showed up. And the most recent one, guy named Julius Williams. He was driving home from a night club with a buddy. Stopped to get gas, went around back of the station to take a leak, never came back to the car. The friend said he couldn’t have been missing more than ten minutes before he called the cops.”

“Okay, so three people, all at night, and all of them outside when they went missing?” Sam summarizes, grabbing a yellow legal pad off the top of the TV where he must have set it earlier and scribbling down a few notes.

“Looks like it. And then when all the, uh, the  _parts_  have shown up, it’s not in the same part of town where they were taken.”

“So it’s taking them somewhere, eating them, and then what? Taking out the trash? How long before they’re dumped?”

“Amy Simon’s remains were found almost thirty-six hours after she went missing, but the last guy was less than twenty-four.”

Sam nods, tongue poking out a little as he scribbles more notes. Dean kind of wants it in his mouth, but he knows Sam’s focused, so he keeps his seat. They tend to tone it down a bit on the sex when they’re working a job, and even though Dean’s upstairs brain recognizes the practicality, his downstairs one isn’t so inclined.

“There was one other thing the abduction sites had in common,” Dean continues. “Cops said that the places these people were taken from—each one had actually had a  _downturn_  in assault crimes in the weeks leading up to the attacks, like muggings and fights, stuff like that. But after the victims went missing, things went back to normal.”

“Wait, so we’re looking for something that what? Actually  _stops_  bad behavior until it…gets bored? Gets pissed off?”

“It’s definitely strange.”

“Why these people? Why stop crime, but then hurt them? What made them different?”

Dean shrugs, loosening his tie a little. “No idea. It could be something they did, or just something about them.”

Sam makes another note on this legal pad, taps his lower lip thoughtfully with it for a moment. “Is that everything you got?” Sam asks, but he’s already moving around Dean, dropping his notes and flipping open the Williams file, so Dean doesn’t bother answering. He skims it as he wanders back to the map before picking up a blue tack from an open container on top to the TV and sticking it at the intersection of a few streets. “So that’s where he went missing, and then…” He consults the folder again, sticks a red pin in a different place, a few miles away. “…that’s where they found most of Julius Williams’s body.” He does the same with the other two victims, and it’s clear that although their abduction sites were pretty spread out, the dumping grounds stayed within a mile or so radius. Sam steps back, looks over the map. “What do you think? A lair?”

Dean nods from where he’s getting himself more pizza. “Could definitely be a lair.”

“That’s a residential area,” Sam continues, running a finger over the three pin heads again and again. “But it’s near a warehouse district so it’s probably pretty run down.”

“Yeah, but what do we know of that lives in a house, anyway?”

“What about an abandoned house, though? That could be sort of cave-like. Dark, dank, dusty.”

“And lots of things like dark, dank, and dusty. So that’s not at all helpful,” Dean points out, settling himself back on the end of the bed with the coroner’s report from Amy Simon’s file.

“Pretty much,” Sam agrees. He sits down next to Dean on the mattress, tucks one foot up under him, flips open the top folder on the stack. Dean reads through the report, but out of the corner of his eye he can see the way Sam’s long fingers are fiddling with the hem of his jeans and tucking his hair behind his ear, and his body seems much more attuned to that than working on the case he’s been slogging through since 9 AM. Sam is very distracting.

“Hey, get this,” Sam says, holding the folder he’s reading out in Dean’s direction, index finger tapping on a line of text. “Amy Simon’s boyfriend told him that she felt like something was watching her a couple of times. Said she didn’t know why, just had a feeling when she would walk to her car, like there were eyes on her back, and then it would disappear and she’d shrug it off. He bought her pepper spray for her purse.” He skims through the other police reports. “Nothing like that for anyone else, but maybe they didn’t talk to the right people.” He snaps the folders shut, tosses them onto the second bed, and then he’s got three fingers sliding up the length of Dean’s tie, undoing the knot with practiced motions. “We should interview the families, maybe ask people in the area if they felt the same thing as Amy,” he says, voice casual. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Dean repeats, shivering at the  _shush_  the tie makes when Sam slides it free of his collar.

“Tomorrow,” Sam confirms against his lips.

***

Sam figures it out, because of course Sam figures it out. He sends Dean off in the morning to track down phone numbers and addresses while he takes the bus to the University of Minnesota library. Dean manages to get on the phone with Julius Williams’s mother, whom the kid talked to just about every day, but she says he never mentioned feeling followed. The second vic, though, Loesch, his best friend does say he’d been feeling “watched” earlier during the night of the attack, which apparently wasn’t that strange because the kid was totally paranoid. “Told me the feeling would come and go,” the friend had said, “but he was always too afraid to turn around and look.”

Dean gives this information to Sam, who calls him from a payphone a couple hours later while Dean’s busy sharpening the knives. “I think it’s an Adroanzi,” Sam starts.

“An andro-what now?”

“ _Ad-ro-_ anzi,” Sam repeats. “I was looking into Central African mythologies because there’s a pretty decent descendent population in the areas it’s attacking. They’re creatures from Lugbara myth, children of the creator god, Adroa. According to the lore, they actually protected people, followed them at night, kept them safe from animals and bandits.  _But_  if the person they were following turned around to check if the Adroanzi were there….”

“Chow town?” Dean finishes, and Sam makes a noise of assent over the phone. “So, do we know how to kill it?”

“Not yet, but visiting hours were over and I had to leave. I, uh,  _borrowed_  a couple of books, though. Come pick me up and we can go through them.”

“Great,” Dean replies, dropping the phone back into its cradle.

***

They dig into the books, but only come up with more details, like that the creatures are half-invisible, so that when you look at them dead on, there’s only one side of the thing there, and they can disappear completely if they turn the wrong way. There’s nothing about how to kill them, though, or how to track them if they’re not on your tail. Or how to even find a monster you’re not allowed to look at in the first place.

Dean’s getting restless, playing his fingers over the arch of Sam’s foot (“ _stop that_ ”), shifting against the thin padding of his cheap shit chair and thinking about Chinese food, or maybe some KFC, when Sam sits up excitedly, pulling his feet out of Dean’s lap and shoving the book he’s holding in Dean’s direction. “Look!” he enthuses, tapping his finger on a black and white drawing of a flower with what looks like grotesque, spindly fingers wrapped around it.

Dean lifts his head, cocks an eyebrow. “They have creepy fingers?” he asks.

“No,” Sam says, exasperated. “They’re  _gardeners_.”

“ _O_ -kay? I still don’t understand why we’re excited.”

Sam’s got a little flush highlighting the line of his cheekbone, the way he always does when he’s figured out something really important. “Because, Dean,” he replies, making it sound like ‘ _duh_ ’ instead, “how many abandoned houses do you think are gonna have a flourishing garden out back?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh! Now we can find where it’s hiding, in case someone else goes missing.”

“And then we’ll know where it is to kill it,” Dean finishes, as Sam nods along. “Well, it seems like it hunts at night, right? So we’d probably be safest going to look now.”

“Sure, yeah,” Sam agrees, stepping away from the table to get into his boots. “But let’s get dinner on the way. I can tell you’re hungry.”

Dean grabs his gun off the nightstand, checks the safety before tucking it into the back of his pants. “Fried chicken sound good?”

***

They’re canvassing an area about a mile-and-a-half square that Sam had identified as the Adroanzi’s most likely home base, creeping through backyards and climbing to look over garden walls as stealthily as possible because this is really not something that Dean wants to try explaining to the police, when Dean feels it, a chilling prickle right down the nape of his neck, like someone’s dipped a comb in ice water and is dancing the teeth over his skin.

He stops in his tracks, muscles immediately tense as he tries to keep his breathing steady, as he fights the burning need instilled by years of training to turn around, check his back, protect himself. He opens his mouth to say something to Sam, a handful of steps ahead of him and moving towards a chipped brick wall to haul himself up. Only Sam seems to realize that Dean isn’t with him anymore, and he says, “Dean?” curiously, turning back to look, and Dean throws out his hands, yells, “ _Don’t!_ ” but he’s too late, Sam’s eyes are locked over his shoulder, growing wide, and that’s when everything goes black.

When Dean wakes up on the dirty, cracked pavement, dry-mouthed and sticky with cold sweat, Sam is gone.

Dean drags himself up off the pavement, world shifting dizzily around as his head gives a sick throb of pain. He holds himself up against a telephone pole as he feels gingerly around the back of his skull. There’s no lump, no physical damage at all, but his head is aching in time to his pulse like he’s been bludgeoned. Some sort of magic, then, to get Dean out of the way because he hadn’t actually broken the thing’s rules. Which means that wherever Sam is, he might still be unconscious. Defenseless.

The sky is still dark, but it’s quiet and still enough that Dean knows the city’s in the predawn lull, late-nighters gone in and early risers not yet out. He must have been out for hours. They’ve got no real picture of how long the creature holds onto its victims before it kills them, but the one thing Dean knows with absolute certainty is that the clock is ticking, and he has to find Sam _now_.

Okay, stop. Think. He needs to find Sam, fast, but all he’s got to go on now is what he had before—find the house with the garden. They’d been searching for hours before the attack, had probably covered half the houses in Sam’s zone. Once people started waking up for the day, he could try asking around, but he’d have better luck at this time of night keeping up his search. So he shoves down the pain and panic, locks it safe behind the wall of knowledge that however bad he is, Sam is probably worse.

It takes him over an hour, sky pinking around the edges now and a few lone cars rumbling down the streets, engines echoing in the spaces between sagging clapboard.  Sam was, of course, right—as soon as Dean gets to the house, he knows it’s what he’s looking for. Vines climb up and over the crumbling back wall, not brittle and dry like at the other rundown houses in the area, but a lush green dotted with little purple flowers. He catches his toes into footholds made by weather and time, hauls himself up just enough to peek over the top. He can’t see all the way down to the back porch, but the backyard looks subtropical, waist-high weeds and the strong smell of blooming vegetation. Climbing plants inch across the back façade of the house, crisscrossing and growing into the lattice-work of a broken out first-floor window. The house is so filthy Dean doubts a pressure wash would do much of anything to help it, and the windows are all dark.

He holds onto the wall until his fingers go numb and can’t keep him there anymore, but sees no movement before he lowers himself back to the ground as quietly as possible. A large part of him wants to go tearing up the back steps, but he stays crouched behind the shelter of the wall, tries to think of what Sam would do in the same situation. The list of what Dean knows is limited—Sam is probably in the house, Dean has a gun but Sam’s might be gone—and what he doesn’t is overwhelming—if the creature’s inside, how to kill it when he finds it, what state his brother will be in when he finds him (conscious or unconscious, maybe hurt but definitely intact and _definitely_ not dead because Dean can’t even let his brain go there or he’ll never get up from behind this wall, he’ll die here too afraid to move and make the thoughts in his head reality). Regardless, the clock is still ticking, and Dean really has no choice but to find his way inside and find his brother before there’s nothing left to find (not happening, he’s here in time, it’s all going to be okay, he just needs to get to Sam, get to Sam and everything will be fine).

He closes his eyes, lets the worry pull him under, drown him deep for a slow count of three, and then he shoves it ruthlessly away. Sam is waiting. Sam needs him.

Dean is not going to let him down.

The backyard is a jungle, and Dean doesn’t even want to think about what’s hiding in all those plants (Sam had mentioned that the Adroanzi used remains to help with their farming, _gross_ ) not to mention the noise he’d have to make negotiating his way through, so he gets to his feet, makes his way around the rest of the house as carefully and quietly as possible. The front porch is made up of crumbling cinderblocks, but it looks sturdy enough to take his weight. He eases his way up, but the door is, of course, locked and his lock pick kit is, of course, sitting on the table back in the motel room. The door’s in shit shape, but kicking it down would definitely attract the attention of anything inside, and that’s less than ideal when Dean’s trying for stealth-rescue-mission instead of let’s-murder-this-fucker-in-the-face.

He hits jackpot on the east-facing side of the house, where he finds a broken first-floor window too high to pull himself up into and a 55-gallon trash can with a puddle of leaves and dirty rainwater in the bottom. He dumps it out, drags the can over to the window, flips it upside down. Definitely not the most stable thing, so he climbs up onto it carefully, knees before feet, keeps his weight evenly distributed so it doesn’t flip or collapse beneath him. There’s shards of glass still holding onto the bottom of the window frame, so he strips out of his leather jacket, tosses it over to protect his hands as he pulls himself up, cursing at the noise his feet make scrabbling on the siding as he heaves himself through the rotting frame and inside, boots hitting the carpet softly. He turns back for his jacket, shakes it out, slips it on, pulls the gun out of his waistband and releases the safety.

Now that he’s inside, it’s easier to square the panic away, just another job, just any other life-threatening situation. The room he’s in is a mess, some kind of old study with more plant life starting to come up through cracks in the foundation, but empty of anything important, so he moves out through the door, open and hanging loose from only one hinge, and into a dark hallway, gun up, back to one wall as he sidesteps down the corridor. His nerves feel like they’re jumping under his skin even though his hands remain steady, senses on high alert as he reminds himself again and again that this thing could be invisible and all he has is a prayer that a gun will slow it down.

There’s another door on the hallway, closed this time, and Dean closes his hand around the knob, sucks in a deep breath and holds it as he eases the door open, gentle but quick, swearing internally at the groan of the hinges. It’s a half bath, so dark that Dean has to pull the flashlight out of his pocket, checking over his shoulder as he clicks it on to see if all the noise he’s making has attracted attention. The bathroom is empty, but he doesn’t bother shutting the door before moving on, more worried about sound in the oppressive silence of the house than leaving visible evidence of his presence.

The hallway opens up into a foyer, front door ahead of him, open archways to his right and left and stairs at his left shoulder. He checks the right side first, a dining room in its former life that’s connected by a second door to the equally disheveled kitchen, tile so broken under his feet that he doesn’t dare enter, just sweeps his light around and hopes that Sam isn’t trapped in the pantry.

He watches the stairs for a full thirty seconds before he cuts across the entryway into what was once the living room but now is clogged with ominous, cloth-covered shapes and stinks like molding upholstery. There’s a side closet, and Dean opens the door like he did the bathroom, tension tight and flaring in his stomach, beating hot in his blood with every flicker of his pulse.

Empty. Fuck.

He’s turning to head back into the living room when he hears it, a faint creak from above and over his right shoulder that can only have come from the stairs. Something must have heard him.

No really, _fuck_.

His options are limited—hide out here and hope he’s not found, try to get the jump on it and somehow use that to his advantage to get away, or sneak back out to the stairs and hope the thing goes the other direction so he has a chance to get up the stairs and find Sam with option two as a backup. None of them are good choices, but the last one at least might allow him to keep searching, so he eases himself out of the closet, keeps himself low as he creeps over to the archway, gun up and ready just in case. He holds his breath for a long moment but hears nothing, decides he’s going to have to look for himself, puts his shoulder to the wall, leads with his gun and rounds the corner slowly, slowly, breath trapped in his lungs and neck stretched taut to get the best line of sight, sees a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye at the bottom of the stairs and _shit_ , there’s only a 50-50 chance he hasn’t been seen so he’s all in now, spins himself around the corner and falls right into shooting stance, finger tightening on the trigger and

Almost shoots his brother in the face.

“Shit!” he all but yells, forgetting discretion as a flooding swoop of relief makes his knees go soft (Sam is _alive_ ) and he drops the gun to his side automatically. Sam, who thank God had the good sense to drop into a crouch when Dean came around the wall, springs back up, jumps down the bottom two steps to land silently in front of Dean, and claps a hand over his mouth before Dean can say anything else.

“It’s in here,” Sam whispers, mouth pressed right up to Dean’s ear and words so soft they’re barely more than breath. Dean nods his understanding and Sam drops his hand away.

Dean points up the stairs, raises an eyebrow in question and Sam frowns his agreement, watching the dark space of the top landing with trepidation. Dean points again, thumb to the front door, but Sam shakes his head, taps at his temple and jerks his chin up at the second floor. _I have an idea, but it’s up there_. He puts a firm hand on Dean’s shoulder, _stay here_ , but Dean shrugs him off and glares, _yeah fucking right_. Sam rolls his eyes but acquiesces, points at Dean’s gun then Dean’s face with two fingers and draws them down to his own feet, _stay ready and watch what I do_ , and turns to start back up the stairs.

The back of his shirt is torn and Dean almost chokes at the neat scratches dripping blood through the skin underneath, but he shakes it off and moves up behind his brother, placing his feet exactly behind Sam’s to avoid the creaky places Sam must have discovered in the stairs as he snuck down them. At the top, Sam holds up a hand, looks in each direction before turning his ear to the side and listening hard. Finally, he reaches back, takes Dean’s wrist, tugs him quick and silent down the hallway to the left and through an open door.

There’s enough light coming in the dirty window to see that there’s a bed frame with no mattress, a chair in the middle of the room with a bunch of coiled rope at the base, and an old dresser covered in a dust cloth. The carpet is gray, ripped, and clearly bloodstained. It’s the dresser that Sam drags him in front of, plants him there and says, “Stay,” at his normal volume, but before Dean can ask him something along the lines of ‘what the fuck happened to sneaking?’ Sam is picking up the wooden chair, hefting it up over his head, and throwing it at the bedroom window.

The shatter of glass is spectacularly loud in the dusty silence of the house, makes Dean want to cover his ears reflexively, but then Sam is back by his side, pressing him right up to the edge of the dresser and grabbing his hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tight. “When I say, close your eyes,” he says, looking seriously into Dean’s eyes and Dean nods. Sam turns away, reaches out to fist his free hand into the drop cloth in front of them.

The glass has settled back into silence, the only sounds left in the room the hiss of wind through the broken window and Sam’s heavy exhales through his nose, and so Dean can clearly hear the sound coming down the hallway, a quiet, popping _stritch_ like cat claws catching on carpet, and then the sound of fingernails scratching softly on the wooden doorframe and he knows it’s in the room with them, feels that ice cold prickle on the back of his neck, feels Sam tense up next to him and knows Sam feels it, too. Sam’s hand white-knuckles on the sheet in front of them, and Dean can feel the pound of his heart in his chest, because he trusts Sam but he’s starting to get nervous, knows the thing is closing in, almost close enough now that Dean imagines cold breath on the back of his neck, and that’s when Sam says “ _Now!_ ” and Dean squeezes his eyes closed tight, lets Sam pull him by the hand down to the ground under a rush of fabric as Sam drags the dust cloth with them.

There’s not even a pause, just a ripping squelch and a terrible sound of agony. He feels Sam moving beside him, shifts around on his knees and risks squinting his eyes, then almost shuts them again immediately because the thing is _dismembering_ itself, turning and flailing helplessly as it removes pieces of it's own body with those needle-point teeth and wickedly pointed fingernails, slick black body almost flickering like a spirit—invisible, half-there, invisible again—and keening horribly as it oozes black ichor all over the floor for what seems like long, horrifying hours until it finally gives up and collapses, twitching, into the oily puddle of its blood, gives a weak death rattle, and stills.

It’s quiet for the span of a few breaths, and then Sam says “Jesus fucking _Christ_.”

Dean chokes on the urge to vomit because Jesus fucking Christ, indeed. “Did you know that was going to happen?”

Sam is shaking his head slowly, face still twisted up in horror. “I didn’t know _what_ would happen. I didn’t even know if that would work, but I figured…no one was allowed to look at it, right? So it probably couldn’t look at itself either. The old Medusa trick.” He gestures over his shoulder, where the drop cloth was covering up a mirror, dirty and cracked but still, apparently, reflective enough to do the trick.

“Are you okay?” Dean asks, before he remembers. “I saw your back.”

“Stings a little, but ‘s fine,” Sam waves him off. “I woke up tied to the chair, managed to work my way out of the knots eventually, but then that _thing_ opened the door. So I pretended I was still out until it came right up to me, and then I threw the ropes at it, punched it,” he continues, holding out a hand to show Dean a bunch of shallow scratches on his knuckles, probably from all those teeth, “and ran. It got me on the back with those claws on the way out, but I managed to hide. It was looking for me when I got the idea about the mirror, but then I heard noise downstairs, figured it was you or some idiot kids looking for a place to get high, so I went to check it out.”

“That’s my boy,” Dean says, pushing Sam forward so he can get a look at Sam’s back himself. The cuts are bleeding sluggishly, but they can definitely wait. He lets his brother sit back, puts a hand on Sam’s cheek. Sam blinks at him quietly, corner of his mouth twitching up just slightly.

“Come on, let’s get this cleaned up.”

***

Dean’s so shaky and exhausted from the flood of adrenaline out of his body that Sam takes the key and opens the motel door when they get back. Sam’s got black blood staining his clothes and his skin, and he starts stripping down as soon as the door closes behind them. Dean watches, feels like he’s detached from his body. His feet are weighted to the floor, hands greasy from hauling the Adroanzi corpse onto the house’s little concrete patio to burn, but his mind doesn’t trust the sensations, can’t seem to believe that he won’t blink and find himself alone again, all this a hallucination and Sam still gone.

He feels hands on his shoulders, pushing off his jacket so that it slips over his slack hands and puddles on the carpet. “Come on, Dean. You’re gross. And you stink like you slept in the street.” Sam tugs at the hem of his shirt until he gets the message and lifts his arms over his head. Nimble fingers start in on his belt buckle.

He laughs faintly around the numbness in his chest. “You undressing me is supposed to be sexy.”

Sam looks up from his work, and Dean sees a little of the tightness around his eyes relaxing. “Yeah well, you’re about as unsexy as humanly possible right now.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” Dean replies, toeing off his boots so that Sam can pull his jeans and boxers down and off.

“Come on,” Sam says, tugging on Dean’s hand to pull him towards the bathroom. He waits, hands restless, as Sam starts the shower and then pulls him under the still-heating spray.

“Gonna take care of you, Dean, okay?” Sam says softly, reaches up to tilt Dean’s head back into the water.

“Okay,” he agrees just as quietly, and gives himself over to the sensation of Sam’s hands on his body, soapy and wet, scrubbing him clean and new again. He feels increasingly grounded in each part of himself that Sam touches, Sam’s hands a reminder that they really are here together again. That Sam’s really okay.

When he’s finished with Dean, Sam steps under the water himself, sets about brusquely cleaning the sticky black blood from his skin. Dean clucks his tongue and pulls the bar of soap out of his hand. “My turn, Sammy.” Sam nods, turns away from him so that Dean can glide the bar over his shoulders, across the expanse of his back, scrubbing the blood away from his scabs gently so they don’t reopen, and then down and over the perfect curve of his ass. He steps up, presses against Sam’s skin as he wraps his arms around Sam’s torso, draws the soap over his stomach and chest.

“Almost lost you today,” he murmurs into Sam’s ear, and he feels Sam tremble despite the heat of the water.

“I know,” Sam says. “But I’m okay. We’re both okay.”

Dean nods into the side of Sam’s neck, can’t help but kiss the knobs of his spine despite the bitterness of soap. He drops the bar somewhere in the direction of the soap dish, steps them both forward under the spray of the shower, runs his hands over Sam’s skin again and again as gray water sluices down the drain. When it’s running clear, Sam turns in the circle of his arms, kisses him under the water until Dean feels like he’s drowning.

He needs to breathe, takes a step back, almost slips when he puts his heel down on the bar of soap he’d abandoned moments before.

Sam doesn’t even try not to laugh at him. “You dropped the soap,” he snickers, reaching behind himself to turn off the water.

“Yeah, what are you gonna do about it?” Dean retorts. “Bend me over in the prison showers?”

The look Sam gives him in return burns his skin hotter than the water ever could. “Yeah,” Sam says, backing Dean up until a shock of cold tile presses against his ass. “I think I will.”

Sam’s mouth is hot and his tongue is insistent, opening Dean up and licking away at him until Dean’s almost humming in anticipation, static charge under his skin that sparks when Sam’s fingertips dance over the inside of his elbows, the span of his chest, leaving him shivery in their wake. His wet skin is pimpling into gooseflesh, but where Sam is pressed against him it’s all searing warmth. One of Sam’s arms wraps around him, fingertips skimming down his back, between his the cheeks of his ass to brush one-two-three over his hole as Sam sucks Dean’s lower lip into his mouth and bites into it _hard_ , makes Dean’s eyelashes flutter at the sharp pain that moves right down to his dick, half-hard already and bumping against Sam’s.

He’s a little disoriented when Sam pulls away, those long-fingered hands cupping his jaw as Sam looks steadily down (yes, down, since Sam’s finally done what he’s threatened the last few years and grown taller than his older brother), and Dean wants to twitch under the stare, wants to say “ _See something you like?_ ” with one of those harmless, flirty grins that he tosses at waitresses to make Sam pout, but he’s used to it in some ways by now, the way that Sam likes to just look at him, likes to weigh Dean down with nothing but that gaze, make Dean think ridiculous thoughts, ludicrous things like that he’s Sam’s whole world, just the same as Sam is his. Like he’s everything Sam’s ever wanted.

“You’re shivering,” Sam says gently.

“Well, I’m wet,” and Dean does give that cocky little grin now, just to make Sam shake his head.

Sam rolls his eyes as he reaches over for a towel, drops it over Dean’s head and knocks Dean’s hands away so he can rub Dean dry from head to toe, sweeping all the way back up to scruff Dean’s hair into an out-of-control mess, just like Dean used to do to him when he was little.

“Knock it off,” Dean says, getting his hands on Sam’s chest to shove him away and tweaking Sam’s nipple for good measure, but Sam just grins and dries himself perfunctorily, steps out of the shower and carefully hangs the towel on the rack because even when Sam’s dick is perking up with blood and his eyes are sweeping a hot _you coming?_ across Dean’s skin, he still can’t leave a wet towel on the floor.

When Dean comes out of the bathroom after combing down the wreck Sam made of his hair before it dries that way, Sam’s on the bed with the sheets pushed all the way down to the bottom of the mattress. He’s lounging, legs open, hand moving experimentally over his cock and totally unabashed in his nakedness, and Dean loves that this Sammy is only for him, that the one everyone else sees is shy and quiet and the one he shares a bed with is all seventeen and sex on legs like he knows that Dean knows all his details right down to the moles on his back and the crooked hint to his teeth and the way one of his feet is just a little bigger than the other, knows that with Dean he’s got absolutely nothing to hide, knows it and loves it, too.

Dean moves into the space Sam’s made for him, and Sam trails big, warm hands up the outside of his thighs, rests them on his hips and leans in to nuzzle at his burgeoning erection, the hair around the base, moves lower to press open-mouthed kisses over Dean’s balls that make Dean’s knees want to knock together, make him curl his hands over Sam’s shoulders to steady himself, across the bones of Sam’s back until his fingertips are brushing the top of the claw marks there and Sam hisses softly at the sting. His nose bumps Dean’s cock up so his tongue can drag roughwet along the vein, wrap around the head and give a few short little sucks, and Dean’s next breath is a moan that just gets longer when Sam looks up, eyes gone dark under the innocent spread of lashes and Dean wants to put hands all over him, mark all that skin up with Sam’s blood, with his own, because it’s both of theirs anyway. Sam gives a low-pitched hum that vibrates right down to Dean’s core and stiffens his dick to the point that it’s aching but then Sam’s backing off, scooting up the bed so Dean can slide between his legs, get his hands in the wet tangle of Sam’s hair and fit their mouths back together, kissing all need and very little finesse, Sam warm and pliant underneath him, hips bumping up to press his erection into Dean’s and gasping when Dean fucks back down into it, a hurt little noise that Dean eats off his tongue and licks back against his tonsils. Sam’s hands cup his ass, and Dean swears he can feel the texture of Sam’s fingerprints, painfully real and so alive and zipping right up his spine to buzz at the base of his skull. The best Dean can do is kiss along the sides of Sam’s face and dip his tongue into the sweat on Sam’s neck and pray he doesn’t come all over Sam’s dick before he can actually come _on_ it.

“Fuck,” Sam whines in his ear, and it’s so filthy Dean shivers. “Want you, big brother. Need you.” And Dean pants, “Yeah Sammy, fuck me, get in me. Now. _Now_.” One of Sam’s hands disappears, and Dean hears it fumbling through the papers on the nightstand. Sam turns his head away, arches up to reach, lets Dean lick all along the ridges of his chest and drag teeth over the points of his nipples as he brings his arms around the curve of Dean’s spine, gets the cap open on the bottle of lube and squeezes some onto his fingers, a stray drop falling coolly onto Dean’s feverish skin.

“Come up here,” Sam demands after he’s clicked the tube shut and tossed it to the side. “Wanna suck you while I open you up,” and well, Dean’s never really been able to say no to his baby brother, not even when he actually wanted to, so he pulls himself up until he’s straddled around Sam’s body, knees under Sam’s armpits and hands braced on the wall in front of him so he has some support when Sam takes him in deep, right back into the clutch of his throat where Dean can feel the reflexive rejection of Sam’s body until Sam breathes past it, relaxes into the sensation and stays there until Dean’s own skin picks up the tremor all along Sam’s muscles as they burn for air and he finally backs off.

“Jesus, Sammy,” Dean growls, sliding his cock right back across Sam's tongue again, almost whining when one of Sam’s hands ghosts across the skin of his upper thigh before it splays across his ass, fingers digging in to spread him open and make room for a slick thumb to rub across his entrance, get it slick so the tip of Sam's thumb can slip in, hook and pull, stretching that ring of muscle open, making Dean full-body twitch even though he’s expecting it. And then the thumb is gone, replaced by the swift, relentless press of Sam’s finger. Dean feels the dig of knucklebones into tender skin, giving him a bare few seconds to adjust before it’s fucking in and out like Dean's fucking his cock through Sam's lips. Dean feels Sam work his finger around, find that spot that makes Dean swear and press his hands into the drywall until they flush white around his fingernails.

Sam’s mouth slips off, exposing the spitwet length of Dean’s dick to the touch of cold, conditioned air, but all he does is murmur, “Come on, know you want to big brother,” before Dean’s sucked back into slick heat, so wet he feels like there’s water in his lungs. Sam’s finger slips out completely but presses right back in with a partner, and _fuck yeah_ , Dean _does_ want to, buries one hand in Sam’s hair and pumps his hips forward, deeper into Sam’s mouth as Sam’s eyes fall closed and he hums in satisfaction, before Dean fucks back onto those fingers, works them deeper inside himself with each thrust until he’s buried in Sam and Sam’s buried in him, scissoring and twisting and finding his prostate again and again and again, relentless and spectacular and Dean’s open-mouthed, gasping, a choking shaking mess as he sobs, “Gotta stop, gonna come, _gotta_ come, _ah_ ,” but Sam just tilts back his neck and opens his eyes and cups Dean’s balls firmly in the hand not web-deep in Dean’s hole and Dean’s done, forehead smacking too hard against the wall in front of him as he comes right down his baby brother’s throat until he’s wrung out, wrung dry by the milking of Sam’s tongue, hypersensitive to the warm press against his prostate.

“Fuck, Sam,” he whispers and it’s ragged and he feels the pleased huff of Sam’s breath spread warm against the thin skin of his pelvis where Sam’s cheek is resting while Dean recovers. Finally, when his ears stop ringing and he feels like he can move again, he uncurls himself and leans back, whimpering a little as it forces Sam’s fingers more forcefully inside of him. “Wanna fuck me, baby boy?” he asks, and Sam gives an eager little nod that takes Dean briefly back to toys in the cereal box and Saturday morning cartoons, moves his body up until he’s sitting more fully against the headboard, Dean hovering over him and leaning in and kissing those flushed red lips, open and sloppy under his mouth where they’ve gone a little numb from Dean’s dick, tasting himself on the roughness of Sam’s tongue.

“Want you like this,” Sam breathes into him and Dean wants to protest because his legs are fucking tired from holding himself up and Sam swallowing all his stamina, but Sam’s giving him that hung-the-moon look with stretched-wide pupils and damn it Dean almost lost this today, almost lost himself and he’d give Sam the skin off his back and the cells in his veins so what Sam’s asking for really isn’t so much. He eases himself back, Sam holding himself steady so Dean can balance his weight on his hands, balance his hands on Sam’s chest as he works his body down, rocks the flushed hard length of his little brother all the way inside and he wants to come apart under the pressure, the pleasurable burn, the awe all over Sam’s face.

Dean pauses, adjusts, squeezes the cock inside of him experimentally to watch the resulting shudder roll down Sam’s spine, before he slowly slides himself up, deliberately sinks back down. Sam is always overwhelmed in these first few moments, eyes wide and disbelieving, lips parted and breaths harsh, so Dean takes his time, works himself past the sensitivity until it’s all dull, sparking pleasure again, moves his hips in little figure eights until Sam’s hands finally let go of their death grip on the bed and hook around his hips, urging him back down with more force until Dean’s slamming himself down. so hard he’ll feel it for days, just like he wants to, the reminder that they’re here and together and sharing the same air, Dean digging his hands into Sam’s skin for leverage, riding him hot and hard, drawing it out, pulling hurt little whimpers out of Sam’s throat, his own dick half-hard even though he knows he’s not gonna be able to come again, until Sam gets seventeen-year-old frustrated and growls out, “Roll over,” shifts his hips until Dean complies and they topple, Sam’s dick almost slipping out before he settles them onto their sides, Dean’s leg trapped in the soft space under Sam’s ribcage and the other thrown over Sam’s hip. Sam wastes no time on adjustment, just fucks into him whipcrack fast with the energy only a teenager can muster until he’s choking Dean’s name into the sweaty skin of Dean’s shoulder and sinking in his teeth as he comes.

Dean holds him there for a long minute, hands carding through Sam’s hair and running gently over his back until Sam reluctantly pulls away, just far enough to let his dick slip out, and they shift together back up onto the pillows, pull the sheet up over their hips.

They’re facing each other in the bed, skin sweat damp and sticking where they touch, Sam’s eyes closed and Dean’s fingertips on his neck, feeling the reassuring flutter of his pulse. Dean knows he’s got Sam back, can feel Sam’s come already, body-warm and slipping down the back of his leg to stain the sheets, but the recent fear of losing him is so deep in his bones that it’ll take weeks to get it out.

“I’ll give it up,” he says softly, dragging his fingers up the soft skin of Sam’s neck to ghost over his cheekbones, up to the tilted corner of his eyes.

“Hmm?” Sam asks, eyes opening and focusing sleepily on Dean. Dean brushes a thumb over his eyebrow.

“Hunting. I’m...we can be done with it Sam, for good. Settle down. You can go to college, whatever you want. Sam…nothing is worth—.” He inhales a shaky breath, tries to get himself under control, stupid endorphin bullshit making him a weepy little bitch. “I can’t lose you. I can’t, I wouldn’t be able to...to....”

“Shhh, big brother,” Sam murmurs. He leans in, presses his lips to Dean’s collarbone. “Not gonna lose me, okay?”

Dean doesn’t reply, just slides his hand into the sweaty, tangled mess of Sam’s hair and uses it to pull him up for a kiss. He lets Sam go after a long moment, settles his head down into the pillow, closes his eyes, tries to swallow around the lingering twist in his gut.

It’s quiet for a long moment before he hears Sam’s voice. “I don’t know.”

He opens his eyes again. “Don’t know what?”

Sam rolls onto his back, looks contemplatively at the ceiling. “Today was bad but...well, we’re still here, you know?” He turns his head, eyes falling soft and serious on Dean’s. “I’ve been so scared, Dean. Spent the last four years of my life terrified of what could happen to me or, worse, you. And then something _did_ happen, and it coulda been really bad but. But we figured it out, you know? We got through it.” He rolls back towards Dean, grabs at Dean’s hand where it’s resting on the mattress and intertwines their fingers. “The two of us together? I sorta feel like we can handle anything.” He looks down at their hands, adds quietly, “And maybe the world needs us.”

“Maybe I need you more,” Dean counters, squeezing the hand in his hard enough to hurt.

“Maybe,” Sam concedes. “But I’m not afraid anymore.” He looks at Dean for a long moment and then ducks his head. “Well,” he continues with a little laugh, “not any more than is normal for us, anyway.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. And the rest of it? We’ll figure it out.”

Dean thinks about Sam, about the feeling of Sam under his arms as they watched Dad’s body burn, about the press of Sam’s still-baby soft skin against his as they shared a bed or a backseat out of fear and necessity, about good grades and hours of driving with Sam’s head in his lap, about how Sam gets bigger and smarter and stronger and more beautiful every day. About how they fight and how they fuck, about fingernail-shaped scabs on Sam’s shoulder blades and bite marks on his chest when they do both at the same time. About how Sam is all his, and he is all Sam’s, and sometimes he doesn’t know where one of them stops and the other begins.

“Us against the world, right Sammy?” he asks, and the smile that splits Sam’s face glows like the sun in the cheap incandescent lamplight.

“Yeah, Dean. You and me.”

**Author's Note:**

> A million thank yous to all the people who kept me going/personally listened to me whine as I wrote this fic (you know who you are and you know how much I love you), and to all the wonderfully patient readers on Tumblr who gave me motivation and feedback in tags, comments, and my inbox as this story grew. I started this fic for a minibang last year, but had to put it on hold because of unexpected bad things in life. I never dreamed then that I could write something so long and I definitely couldn't have done it alone.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading!


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